


A Family for Jemmy

by emma98



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: 1840's au, F/M, Frontier AU, I tried to be historically accurate. but I wasn't alive back then so there are bound to be mistakes, Natalia won Bucky in a card game and they head west with Steve, Natasha/Natalia is a badass, Nurturing Darcy, Protective Steve Rogers, Steve has a problem with pants, adorable virgins and their buckets full of sexual tension, domestic Darcy, maybe because Natalia was wanted for stealing from a gang of new york gang, sharing a bed tropey goodness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-29
Updated: 2016-10-03
Packaged: 2018-08-11 21:41:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 45,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7908565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emma98/pseuds/emma98
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve and the newlyweds Natalia and Bucky arrive in Oregon in 1842 and try to eke out a happy little existence.  They are joined by one more in their traveling party, James Buchanan Barnes, Junior, or Jemmy as his mother calls him.  Days before Jemmy's third month of life, Bucky and Natalia go missing, and Steve looks for help with the baby while he searches for his friends.</p><p>When he walks into Stark's saloon, he thought he'd be getting a 'working' lady to help him make sure baby Jemmy doesn't starve to death.  Instead he gets a buxom little lady wearing men's britches with a mystery surrounding her.  She's a little bit of a bossy know-it-all, but Steve can't find that he has any complaints.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Bottle for Jemmy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GlynnisIsta8](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GlynnisIsta8/gifts).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...I clearly have no idea what I'm doing here. I now have four works in progress. I'm definitely in some kind of trouble.
> 
> BUT, this story has a beginning a middle and an end. So, I think ten chapters in all? 
> 
> I really loved this reality show on PBS called Frontier House. Where a bunch of modern people went out and lived on the frontier as authentically as possible. And history is one of my favorite things to learn. This story is not 100% historically accurate, but I'm trying my best. Also, please be warned that due to the time period, there may be potentially offensive slurs regarding Native Americans, women, and African Americans. (And usually, when these things are said, either Darcy or Steve will probably object. those progressive idealists).

 

**Chapter One:  A Bottle for Jemmy**

* * *

  


**_Oregon Settlement, 1842_ **

 

The baby was wailing his head off.  James Buchanan Barnes, Junior had a hell of a set of lungs on him, Steve would give him that.  The baby boy was nearing three months old, but Steve would swear that the screams were louder than a pack of wolves howling and  could have woken the dead.  But there was one thing the wailing couldn’t do.

 

Crying wasn’t going to bring his mother and father back.

 

A year ago, Steve had put his last bouquet of simple daisies on his beloved mother’s grave before meeting up with his best friend, James “Bucky” Barnes and his brand new bride, Natalia.  Natalia wasn’t quite a mail order bride.  Bucky was enough of a handsome young man to not need one.  But when he got into a card game he couldn’t win against a mysterious man with a nearly indistinguishable accent, Bucky turned from neighborhood ne’er do well into someone’s fiance in the time it took to lose one hand.  

 

It was Natalia’s idea to move West.  And it all happened rather quickly.  Money was procured out of nowhere to pay for their long journey.  Horses, a wagon and the deed to a cabin in Oregon were placed in Bucky’s hands by Natalia twelve hours after they got married.  

 

Apparently, she couldn’t stay in New York much longer.  Steve wasn’t sure if it was because of problems with the law or problems with the Forty Thieves gang.  He strongly suspected she had run into problems with the Forty Thieves gang and he was even more sure two weeks later when he caught her stealing salted meat from an awful tyrant in a small town in New Jersey and distributing it to hungry neighborhood children.

 

Steve liked Natalia a lot.  They were quick friends and it was Natalia that had told the man he rented a room from that he would no longer need it.  It was Natalia that had packed up all his worldly possessions when he had been out looking for work that was never there.  It was Natalia that had told him in her slightly Russian accent that she and Bucky would never be able to make it on their own.  So Steve smiled, nodded and told her that he would never have been able to make it in New York without Bucky or her any longer.

 

Bucky and Natalia had been married one week after that lost card game.  They definitely hit it off right away.

 

Because Jemmy, as he was called by his mother, was born nearly nine months after his parent’s one month anniversary, three days before the trio of settlers staked their claim on an isolated cabin close to the Clackamas River.  Bucky and Steve had spoken with the other travelers heading west and they knew that their future well being would have to happen through animal trapping and trading furs.  

 

Steve desperately wished that they had made a different choice.  Natalia had been so insistent to get as far away from New York as she possibly could.  But Steve wished that he could have convinced Mister and Missus Barnes to settle in California instead.

 

“Ssssshh, Jemmy.  It’s alright, it’ll be alright,” Steve murmured to the baby he had tried to strap to his chest as he rode the three miles of rough trail into the nearest town.  

 

“Tis the last rose of summer, left blooming alone,” Steve sang softly as he tried to cradle the boy tightly now as the road got rougher at the last little stretch.  The babe could barely hold his head up, even though Bucky had insisted his boy was the strongest and best boy in the world.  A babe shouldn’t be riding horseback into town, Steve knew that, but he had no other choice.

 

Once he finally hit a more even road, the little street of the town was in sight, Steve realized that his choices weren’t many now that he was in town.  Natalia had been one of the only women to travel westward with the men, and she had been the only one to go this far.  The town was full of men who were trapping and hunting and looking to make money and a place for themselves before setting out to bring a wife westward.

 

His only choice was the saloon.

 

And he knew the saloon was essentially a front for a whore house.  Three ladies who had ended up in Oregon, somehow.  Steve didn’t judge them.  That wasn’t his job to do so, the Good Lord above was the only one who was qualified to do so. Steve had read the bible plenty.  Jesus had been friends with prostitutes.   And a person deserved to make a living in any way they could.   Steve colored as he eased himself off of his horse.  

 

He’d been a tiny little thing his whole life, then at the age of seventeen, he’d sprung up like a weed, almost like magic.  The year long trip westward had somehow added muscles and bulk, thanks to a protein rich diet that Natalia was prodigiously skilled at miraculously procuring no matter where they were.  But now at the age of twenty-two, Steve was still no man of experience.  Bucky teased him good naturedly about it and Natalia thought it was precious.  Steven Rogers was actually a man of no experience.  

 

And the ladies at the _saloon_ made him blush all the way up to his ears.

 

Jemmy made a whimpering wailing sound and Steve squared his shoulders and took quick steps towards the saloon.

 

“Well hell boy, what’ve you got there?” the barkeep demanded.  

 

Stark.  His name was Anthony Stark, Steve thought.  His moustache was ridiculous and the few times Steve had met him, he’d been so annoyed by just about every inappropriate thing that had flown out of the barkeep’s mouth.  Steve fought a scowl and rocked Jemmy against him gently.

 

“I need a wet nurse for this little one,” Steve said quickly.  “Any of the ladies---”

 

“Ppppssssh,” Stark waved him off.  “My girls can’t be using their finery to feed any warbling babies.  Never had any reason to use their---”

 

He paused and gestured to his own chest with a cheeky wink.

 

“ _Assets_ that way.  No wet nurses available in Oregon, boy.  Where’s the little squawkers ma?”

 

“Don’t know, went off to check their traps and haven’t been back,” Steve winced as he bopped Jemmy back and forth.  “He needs to eat.”

 

“I got some porridge cookin’ for the morning crew,” Stark shrugged.

 

“You can’t give porridge to a babe that little, you silly fool!”

 

Steve almost smiled at the look of annoyance that crossed Stark’s face, but then a very small little blur came in from the kitchen and smacked Stark across the head with a wet cloth.  She was a tiny little thing, and definitely wasn’t painted up like one of the ladies that worked in the saloon.  For one, she was wearing britches.  Too big for her and held up by suspenders.  Her shirt mostly fit, except across the chest, where it was strained against an ample bosom.  

 

Curly brown hair hung down her back, wild and unchecked, and her face was smudged with what looked like ash from the fire.  She had big blue eyes staring at Steve in concern, and pouty pink lips were pushed into a frown as Jemmy continued to wail.

 

She nodded once before hopping back behind the bar and grabbing a glass bottle that was freshly washed.  

 

“The goat’s milk, Starky,” she said quietly.

 

“I need that for tonight’s special!” Stark guffawed.  “I’m naming it _Mary's slippery nipple_.”

 

“You give me that damned milk or I will waste this nice clean bottle on the useless pile of horse shit on the top of your neck that you call a head!” she threatened.

 

“Damn, Darcy, you need to watch your language, there are little ears present,” Stark grumbled, reaching under the counter and pulling out the goats milk.  

 

Steve watched as the little woman, who was definitely not one of the three ladies of ill repute who worked upstairs, poured some of the milk in a bottle, then added some clean and fresh water.  She pulled off a little piece of rubber from one of Stark’s bottles of whiskey, pinched it into a tight peak and poked a hole in it before rushing to Steve and holding out her hands expectantly for the baby.

 

Steve wordlessly pulled a miserable and wailing Jemmy from the sling he had made up and handed the strapping little man to her.  Jemmy quieted immediately in Darcy’s hold, staring up at her with big, blue, curious eyes.  The woman’s touch seemed to calm the baby and his head immediately began burrowing against Darcy’s bosom in hopes of getting some sustenance.

 

Bucky had crowed that his son was the cream of the crop at birth, and Jemmy had been growing and fattening up ever since, and the fattened little man made Darcy look even smaller as she cradled him expertly and popped the bottle in his mouth.  He took to it immediately, suckling like his little life depended on it.

 

“That’s a fair bit easier than spoon feeding him,” Steve sighed in relief.  He had been struggling with giving the wee little one spoons of milk for the last two days.

 

“Where’s this little man’s mama?” Darcy wondered as he continued to drain the bottle down.  

 

“Lost...her and her husband, my friend Bucky---”

 

“This is Natalia’s baby boy?” Darcy looked up in horror.

 

“Yes, ma’am,” Steve nodded, wondering how this young lady knew Natalia.  They’d only been in Oregon a short three months, and Natalia had a nursing baby, she didn’t have a lot of time to go socializing in town.  “They’ve been missing two days, went to check the traps and never came back.”

 

“Savages,” Stark shook his head.  He sighed and admitted, “Technically, they had dibs here, so you can’t blame them for trying to protect what used to be theirs, but----”

 

“Don’t call em, _savages_ , Anthony!” Darcy glared at him.  “They’re people like you and me.  The all nearly died ten years ago from the fever.  And they have a name, the Kalapuya...”

 

“Tell that to the little man in your arms!” Tony argued, seemingly for the sake of arguing.  “He’s an orphan now thanks to those people that are supposedly just like you and me.”

 

“He's NOT an orphan!  I---I gotta go and look for them, but I need help,” Steve interrupted meekly before Darcy could keep arguing with Tony, which she clearly wanted to do.  She was passionate and seemed to definitely know what she was talking about.   He’d liked what she had to say, too.  He’d learned on the long journey out West that the best way to survive is to co-exist with the people who technically owned the land.  Bucky and Natalia had been less willing to entertain his progressive issues, but this lady in britches and smudges on her face sounded like himself after his tongue was loosened enough with the whiskey.  He looked at her beseechingly and asked as humbly and respectfully as he could, “Miss Darcy, please, would you come and help me with Jemmy?”

 

“Hold on just one minute there, boy,” Stark looked worried.  “You can’t take her, she’s my cook---”

 

“What’s your name?” Darcy demanded.  

 

Steve couldn’t place her accent for the life of him.  It didn’t sound like his Irish-tinged lilt of New York City.  And it wasn’t Natalia’s barely hidden Russian bent to words.  It was slang he recognized from travelers from down South, just barely, but enough to recognize.

 

“Steven Rogers, ma’am,” Steve nodded, lifting his cap a bit.  

 

“Darcy, you were meant to stay here,” Tony hedged.  “You can’t go and live with a man like that unmarried, I don’t care for how long it is…people’ll talk and then you’ll be working upstairs here instead of down.”

 

Steve opened his mouth to tell the barkeep to shove it but Darcy fixed Anthony with a mean glare that had him holding up his hands in easy defeat.  

 

“Please,” Steve whispered earnestly, looking at Darcy as Jemmy finished his meal.  He watched as the tiny little buxom woman put the bottle down on the bartop and brought the baby up over her shoulder to burp him.  Steve held Darcy’s gaze with his own, fierce and blue and earnest.   “Miss Darcy, _please_.”

 

“Oh, those eyes are going to be a lot of trouble for me, I can tell,” Darcy murmured as she felt Jemmy’s little hands reaching for the collar of her shirt, baby soft skin hitting her neck haphazardly.  She took a deep breath and turned to face the beleaguered barkeep.  “Anthony....I’m taking my goat with me.”

  
"Aw, Darcy.  But I love Mary!"

 

* * *

 

  


Steve approached the big cabin that he, Bucky and Natalia had staked their claim on.  It was plenty big enough for the three of them and the baby, but Steve and Bucky had been building onto it, in anticipation that Steve could eventually get a wife of his own out here in the West.

 

Steve had never ever believed that he could manage such a thing.  Single women were a scarce commodity past the Mid-West, and certainly any woman that'd want to come out and rough it wouldn't want him.  He wasn't like Bucky, he had no natural way with women.  Mostly, he just sweated through his shirts and got nervous.

 

Case in point, Darcy was riding in front of him on their shared horse, cuddling the baby to her bosom in her new and improved sling.  She'd worked out a way to get Jemmy so close to her that he barely could wiggle, which seemed like a much safer way for him to ride.  The baby was much happier cuddled to Darcy’s ample bosom, preferring it to Steve’s rougher muscles, for sure.

 

Softer was better, Steve knew that by now.  He knew  it the moment he had hopped up on the horse behind Darcy.

 

Darcy’s whole back was pressed tight against Steve's front and his arms were wrapped around her in order to take the reins.  A little cart was attached to the horse's rig, containing all her worldly possessions and Mary, the small goat that Darcy had argued with Anthony about taking.  Steve had been shocked by her foul language (Natalia only cursed in Russian), but once Darcy had gotten Jemmy into her baby sling, she'd taken a shot at him, boxing Stark soundly on his ears and telling him it was her goat to begin with and Stark could jump off a cliff.

 

"You's done a good job of building up those new posts, there," Darcy remarked quietly, turning her head so that Steve could hear her.  "That'll be a fine house when you're done.  As fine as any house in the East."

 

"You from the East?" Steve managed to croak out as she wiggled in front of him. He swallowed nervously and hoped she couldn't feel what she was doing to him.  He'd never been so close to a lady before and he hadn't realized her backend would be so soft and warm against his body.

 

"No," Darcy answered simply.

 

"You were born in the West?" Steve furrowed his brow.  He'd never met a person over the age of fifteen that had been born to the West.  Darcy shrugged.  "Miss Darcy, how old are you?"

 

"Not polite to ask a lady her age," Darcy muttered.  

 

Steve thought about that. She carried herself like one of those older ladies who ran the boarding houses back in New York.  Like she was confident, brash mother of seven who didn't take any kind of nonsense from no one.  But she looked to be not a day over sixteen, if he was being honest with himself.  She didn't paint her face like the working ladies at Stark's Saloon, and maybe that's why she looked younger in comparison.

 

"You got parents that'll worry over you?" Steve asked.

 

"I don’t---I mean, that's none of your business," Darcy said resolutely.

 

"Are you and Stark---are you his lady?  I mean to say, is he---are you his intended?" Steve stammered.

 

Darcy scoffed at that, "I wouldn't touch Anthony Stark if my life depended on it.  He's a friend to my friend and I landed here when I couldn't go with _them_.  'Sides, Anthony's got a lady.  Real rich one too, back East."

 

"Oh, good," Steve nodded before he could stop the words from coming out of his mouth.  He winced.  

 

"Don't be gettin' any fresh ideas, Mister, I ain't marrying nobody," Darcy insisted as Steve slid off the horse quickly and led him into the little outside building they had designated as a stable.  Her voice sounded like a laugh was curling around the edges of it, just wanting to poke through and tease him into blushing redder than an apple.   " 'M just gonna come out and help you with this little'n here until you find Natalia and her husband, and then be on my way."

 

"I really appreciate your help," Steve nodded, reaching up tentatively to help Darcy and Jemmy down.  "I'll get you all settled in the house and then I gotta go and start lookin' for 'em."

 

"You ain't goin' anywhere tonight," Darcy disputed, her own cheeks flushing as Steve wrapped gentle hands around her waist and brought her feet to the ground.  "Storm’s coming in."

 

Steve looked outside at the sunny skies with a frown.  It certainly seemed like a pleasant enough day to him. He'd left with Jemmy at daybreak and he thought it might get a little hotter as the sun rose higher in the air, but that was about it.

 

"My hairs curlin' up something fierce, and it always does that before a good soak," Darcy insisted.  "Janie used to say my hair could tell the weather, she said it was science.  She knows about a lot of stuff.  Real smart, Janie is."

  


Steve had emptied the little cart, backing Darcy's goat into a little pen just the right size for him and throwing in a couple heaping handfuls of hay.

 

"Janie your sister?" Steve wondered.

 

"Yeah," Darcy shrugged.  "Well, you know, closest thing to sisters without sharing blood."

 

"Where is she?" Steve wondered.

 

"Left me behind once she got her fancy fur trading Swedesman.  He said it weren’t no place for an unmarried woman and he couldn’t protect the both of us,” Darcy said bitterly.  "I can protect myself just fine, thank you.  Did it for near ten years.  They said they'd be back for me when they were done with their grand adventure, but it's been going on five months now and I ain't heard from them once."

 

Steve grabbed the unusual bag Darcy had packed.  Instead of wood handles, it seemed to be carved out of some kind of animal bone, and it definitely wasn't ivory.  Instead of thick heavy fabric, it was made out of something a little like leather, but not quite.  Either way it was full to the brim of little things she'd easily packed, and it still didn't seem too heavy as he led the way out of the little barn and up the path to the big cabin.  

 

"Can you get a pot of water to boilin?" Darcy asked.  "Some of it I need for Jemmy-boy's bottles and some of it for bathin' and cookin and drinkin’.”

 

Steve nodded, he could do that.  He'd been dumbstruck on what to do with Darcy's bag.  There was just the two rooms with beds in them.  One with the big lumpy bed that Bucky and he had built and filled with straw and a smaller one with Steve's bed that had already been there.  He didn't know where to put Darcy's bag and he was thankful for something else to do.

 

"Goodness gracious, this is a sty!" Darcy wrinkled her nose as she followed Steve to the kitchen, which was along the back wall of the cabin, kept cooler by the shade.  She shook her head as Steve began the wood fire in the open Franklin stove that had been abandoned in the cabin by the previous owners.

 

Steve twisted his mouth into one of contrition.  

 

"I've been busy with the baby, and didn't have a chance to---"

 

"Don't give me that, Mister, this is a well lived in sty!" Darcy disputed.  There were dirty tin plates and cups on the long work table of the stove, along with too many crumbs and food bits and abandoned rags.

 

"None of us three are great at cleaning," Steve admitted, going to the corner where a basin of water sat.  He filled the biggest cauldron they had and brought it back to the stove, setting it up to boil.  He looked back at Darcy with big, earnest eyes and shrugged helplessly,  "Bucky and me, we never had to tend a kitchen, the rest of the house is clean, I promise.  And Natalia isn't really an ordinary type of lady.  We just---forget?"

  


"Well.  I don't forget," Darcy shook her head and undid Jamie's bindings.  She handed the peacefully sleeping baby to Steve and said, "Put him down, and then get on back here, I'll teach you how to clean a kitchen proper.  And Good Lord, man, what have you been eating?"

 

"Salted fish?" Steve shrugged with a little smile that made Darcy want to pinch at his cheeks a little.  He was so guileless and genuine and absolutely hopeless.  His stomach gargled with hunger loud enough to have Darcy's eyes widening in surprise.

  
"Go on, put the babe to bed, then once you help me clean this mess up, I'll cook you a proper meal.  You ain't chasing after your friends today, not unless you want to get soaked to the bone and end up dead in the bottom of a mudslide for your troubles..  I'll feed both of you boys up proper today and tomorrow is a new kind of day, Steven Rogers."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm claiming this as a reverse prompt for Glynnisista8. She seemed to need shield shock fanfic, so I went into her submission box and wrote a thousand words and said REVERSE PROMPT TELL ME IF YOU LIKE IT! And I think she did.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading!


	2. A Nice, Clean House for Jemmy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so excited about this story! I'm glad to see others are as well!

**Chapter Two: A Nice, Clean House for Jemmy**   
  
  


* * *

  


Steve may be regretting dragging Darcy out to the isolated cabin.  Just a touch.

  


He was plenty grateful for her helping with Jemmy.  The boy was very nearly right back to normal now, except Steve knew that the baby may be a bit grumpy for not hearing his mama's Russian accented words or his papa's soft and gentle little lullabies. The bottle feeding that Darcy had done every two hours was genius, and she promised him it was easy on the little man's tummy, and the boiled and cooled water would make sure he wouldn't be catching any nasty illnesses.  He was beyond grateful for everything Darcy had done thus far.

  


But Steve was definitely tired by the end of the day. 

  


He and Bucky had been too busy building up the homestead in the three months they'd been there to worry much on baking daily bread or washing out their cups.  And Natalia had been too busy with the baby and whatever else she got up to all day (Steve suspected it was hunting, since they always had fresh meat to grill up).  But Darcy had been in his home for less than eight hours, and she'd ordered him about here and there while she got the house so darned clean, Steve was afraid to breathe the wrong way lest he make it dirty again.

  


And it wasn't just the kitchen, cause as clean as the rest of the house was, it was probably only cause none of the three inhabitants had bothered to do much more than set up beds in it.  Darcy set Steve to fixing the broken table and benches that were to be used for eating.  She sent him to the well at least a dozen times for more water for her to boil and cool then cover with the little rubber tops she had an unlimited supply of.  She had him churning goat's milk into cheese and unpacking chests of Natalia's things she had blissfully ignored for three months, setting furniture and candles and little braided rugs down on the ground as soon as she swept them thoroughly.  

  


She stepped one foot into Steve's room and immediately backed out.

  


"The bed needs burning, the hay's gone wet and rancid."

  


"There's a leak on the roof, the bed gets wet," Steve explained quickly.

  


"And the hay'll turn bad and in a week or two you won't be able to breathe proper.  City boys don't know nothin' about laying their head on the hay," Darcy insisted.  The look on his face was clear, the young man was clearly a bad liar or truth bender and Darcy knew he was  _ already _ having a little trouble breathing.  "Burn it, Mister Steven."

  


"Please just call me Steve," he corrected her for the tenth time that day as he carefully began to move the moldy hay mattress even as the rain started to come down in a fine mist outside.

  


He'd set the outhouse door to rights on his own volition.  He and Bucky had no problem with each other seeing their backsides, and Natalia had been pretty good at making sure Steve never caught her unawares in the doorless outhouse, but there was no way in hell Steve was going to chance seeing Darcy relieving herself.  Just the thought of her dropping those britches made him hot all over at the memory of a soft backside pressed between his spread thighs as they rode there that morning.

  


"Eat up, Steve," Darcy said gently as she put a clean tin plate full of food in front of him.

  


He'd already eaten a lunch of fresh baked, delicious corn bread and the salted fish that she'd somehow managed to whip into something that tasted good.  She'd also shoved a cup of tea at him in the late afternoon after he'd finished fixing the outhouse door along with a bit of goat cheese spread on a freshly made flat cracker.  And now, staring him in the face was the best dinner he'd ever seen.  Even better than the dinner Natalia had somehow gotten for them on the night she married Bucky.  Then it had been a fat chicken and potatoes.  

  


Now it was a stew with a lot of corn bread served with it.  The stew was filled with what looked like beef, but Steve thought it might have been squirrel.  He wondered how she got herself one and when.  Unless Natalia had one in the root cellar that Steve hadn't had the time to look for.  The meat swam in a dark, rich gravy with chunks of potato and corn, and what Steve thought might be a carrot.  

  


He took a big whiff of the stew and felt his heart beat a little faster as he looked back up at Darcy.

  


"You ain't marrying me, Steve, put away those moon eyes," Darcy warned jovially as she picked up Jemmy from his little cradle and brought his last bottle of the night to his mouth.   She smiled at Steve proudly and shrugged, "I've turned down three dozen men in the last three years of my life after they ate something I made up for them."

  


Steve took a big scooping spoon full of stew, a little bit of each component in one bite and let out an audible moan when the delicious stew hit his tongue.  Darcy smiled and blushed prettily as she continued to feed Jemmy.  When the baby's bottle was done, Steve was nearly all the way through with his plate, now using the cornbread to sop up every last bit of the gravy.  

  


"How old is this little boy?  He's so fat I can't tell," Darcy furrowed her brow.  "Natalia must have been feeding him nonstop!"

  


"Three months, nearly," Steve answered after swallowing down his last delicious bite of his dinner.  He then went for his cup full of water, which really did taste better after being boiled and cooled.

  


Darcy rubbed at the smiling lips of the baby and then stuck her finger in his mouth and smiled.  "Yeah, he's gonna be squawking soon when those teeth come up."

  


"He's been crying nonstop since his mama left," Steve sighed.  He looked down at his plate, fighting the urge to lick it clean, even as he felt guilty.  Bucky and Natalia were somewhere out there and he'd spent the day fixing up the house and eating more than his fair share and staring covetously at the looker he had brought home from the saloon.  "Miss Darcy?  I don't know how I'm gonna pay you for all this---"

  


"Don't worry on it too much, I'll do it for room and board, same as I was doing it for Anthony and Janie," Darcy waved him off.  "I owe Natalia a debt."

  


"What happened?" Steve furrowed his brow.

  


"Was looking around the forest off by the river one day for some herbs and whatnot," Darcy shivered a bit.  "Came up on the wrong side of a desperate man.  Natalia helped me out of a jam.  I owe her a lot."

  


"A man tried to---he---do you know who it was?" Steve demanded, his face turning hot with sudden anger.

  


"Natalia handled it.  He's not liable to remember his own name anymore, and was shipped to California as far as I know," Darcy made a little grimacing face as she bounced the baby on her knee and smiled at him.  "I owe her, and I'm gonna watch over her sweet little Jemmy-boy till you find them and bring them back."

  


"You---you believe that I can do that?" Steve asked softly.

  


"You seem like the kind of man that can do what he says," Darcy gave him a little smile before bringing Jemmy up to her shoulder and patting his back until little burps came out.  "And I'm gonna help you do it, and I'm definitely the kind of girl that does what she says.  So between the two of us, Natalia and her Bucky will be found in no time, flat."

  


She rose up and pointed to his dish and the one she had finished of her own before he got there.  "Put them in the water basin on the long table to soak overnight.  No more plates left out with crumbs on them.  You'll get more squirrels than what I found in the corner earlier today."

  


Steve did as he was told, with a genuine smile on his face, before he followed Darcy to the back of the cabin to the biggest room.  She pressed tender lips on sweet Jemmy's little cheek before laying him in the cradle and covering him carefully.  She then looked up at Steve curiously.

  


"It's been a real long day, Steve."

  


"That it has, Miss Darcy."

  


"I reckon you're pretty tired with me bossing you all day," Darcy nodded.

  


"You're real good at bossing, but sometimes I need it," Steve admitted sheepishly.  "I get stuck in my own head sometimes, real determined to finish one thing so much that I forget about everything else."

  


"There's fresh water over there in the basin.  Scrub up and then change for bed," Darcy bossed him some more.  

  


Bucky would have laughed till he was blue in the face, because he knew that ever since bossy Missus Jones ordered Steve around when they were twelve, Steve had a definite pining for bossy women.  Steve would have happily had his best friend, his brother in everything but blood as Darcy had described her relationship with her Janie, back under the same roof, laughing his head off as Darcy bossed Steve until he was panting with adoration and want.  He did as he was told, folding clothes neatly enough on the chair in the corner and washing the day's sweat off in the basin as best as he could.  He and Bucky hated nightshirts and their short drawers hadn't lasted through the trip, so instead he picked out a pair of britches that were nearly threadbare with age, but softer than silk, pulling them up and tying them shut.  

  


The weather was still warm enough that Steve didn't see the need for a shirt.   He always ran a little hotter than normal anyway and hardly could sleep if he was too warm.  

  


He looked at the mirror in front of him, another leftover that the previous owners had left in the cabin, and pushed his hand through stick straight, fine blond locks that were standing straight on end.  There was the beginnings of a beard along his jaw and he wondered if he shouldn't just embrace the Western style of the rugged beard.  It'd be much easier to have a woman telling him what to do with his appearance rather than deciding on his own.  Natalia was very insistent on how long Bucky's hair should be and had once tackled him in the middle of the country to get at him with a small blade.

  


Speaking of women, Darcy came back in the room, looking fresh and pretty as a picture in what might have been a long white nightgown at some point.  But it was hacked off at the knees, making it look like an overly long shirt at that point, and Steve felt dizzy as two very shapely legs were on display as Darcy walked back into the room and began fluffing up the pillow on the bed closest to Jemmy's cradle.  

  


"Uhhhhhh," Steve made a soft sound of confusion, his eyes stuck on plump little legs as Darcy sat down on the bed and swung them up.  The curve of her calf and the bend of her knee felt like he was looking at a beautiful hymn from Church come to life, and he had to force his eyes up and off her legs, only to stop at her chest.

  


She must have been wearing some kind of corset under her shirt and britches all day, and now she certainly wasn’t.  Darcy’s bosom was more than ample and he could make out everything underneath the white fabric of her nightdress.  His mouth went slack and dry and his hands dropped to the front of him,trying to provide some kind of cover for the predictable swelling in his pants.

  


“I’m not marrying you,” Darcy warned cheerfully, and the words were starting to sound familiar to Steve’s ear.  Each time, they got a little more playful and joking.  “But this here’s the only bed now and it’s plenty big enough.”

  


“Miss Darcy, I---I couldn’t, I’ll go and fetch the bed roll from the trunks and go to my room,” Steve managed to get the words out of his mouth, but they were hushed and hurried.

  


“Steve,” Darcy gave him a soft, innocent smile.  “It’s just sleeping.”

  


“People’ll talk and your reputation’ll be ruined!” Steve insisted.

  


“Who is going to talk?  Jemmy?” Darcy laughed, a light, tinkling sound.  “Mister Steven Rogers, I will not let my hands wander and defile you in the dark of night.”

  


“Miss Darcy---”

  


“You worked hard yesterday.  And you worked hard today, and you’re gonna work hard tomorrow,” Darcy promised.  “I’m not sending you out into the wild with a bad night’s sleep so you can wind up dead and your friends can stay lost, and I’m gonna be fixing to raise poor Jemmy all by myself.  I don’t like the sound of that much, Steve.”

  


“I---I---” Steve stammered.

  


“Steve, you have five seconds to get in the bed, or I’m gonna go and get that bed roll and sleep on the cold, hard ground, how do you feel about that?” Darcy demanded, arching a brow at him.

  


“No, please, okay, I’m sorry,” Steve made a dive for the bed, pushing himself under the quilt that Bucky’s mother had made for Bucky before she died a few years ago.  He went to the furtherest edge of the bed away from Darcy and lay stiff as a board.  

  


“Does he wake up in the night?” Darcy wondered as she took one last glimpse of Jemmy, a smile on her face.

  


Steve had turned his head slightly and was bewitched by the way she had braided her dark brown curls plainly down her back.  There were strands that had escaped being put in the braid, right at the base of her neck, and Steve’s fingers itched to touch them, to twirl them around his fingers just a little.  He could imagine his hands on the sides of her face, with his fingers touching those curls as his lips---

  


“Steven,” Darcy gave a slightly harsh whisper.

  


“I wasn’t---I’m sorry,” Steve stammered.  “I never heard him crying at night after he hit two months.  Natalia kept him fed and happy so he slept through the night pretty fast.”

  


“Hmm, we’ll see,” Darcy nodded, shimmying her body and bouncing on the very comfortable mattress. 

  


Steve felt his tongue go fuzzy and fat in his mouth as she bounced a little.  He shut his eyes tightly and turned on his side so his back was facing her.  If the Lord above was testing him, then he may certainly fail, because the amount he was currently coveting the practical stranger in the bed was ridiculous.  If she would boss him into touching her, he might very well do just that.

  


“Good night, Steve,” Darcy whispered before she blew out the candle next to the bed.

  


“Good night, Miss Darcy.”

  


* * *

  


  


Steve woke to the sound of rain falling heavily outside and an empty bed.  Jemmy was missing from his cradle too.  The sky was a miserable light gray from what he could see out of the window, and he turned onto his back.  Darcy had been right.  He’d been really tired from the past few days and he slept just fine after the first five minutes of thinking about how close she was.

  


He ambled downstairs to see Darcy busy at the stove, Jemmy laying in a basket on the dining table, cooing happily and waving a long length of fabric in his fat fist, crinkling it every once in a while to hear the sound of something inside making a crunching noise.

  


“Good morning,” Darcy said cheerily as she spooned porridge into bowls.  “Coffee’s been boiling for a minute, I’ll pour some out for you.”

  


“Thank you,” Steve said softly, reaching out and taking the bowls she held out to him.

  


Darcy’s cheeks colored a bit.  She didn’t think Steve realized he didn’t have a shirt on at the moment.  He’d dove into bed finally last night without a shirt on as well and it had taken everything in Darcy to not be completely lit afire.  Steve was a very good looking man.  And Darcy knew a thing or two about good looking men.  She’d most recently spent a lot of time with a bunch of very handsome Swedes.  

  


Steve put them all to shame.  He gave her a sunny, refreshed smile as she handed him the carefully poured coffee, not one bit of grounds in the mugs.  Her own full mug of coffee twitched in her hands and she quickly caught the drops on the top of her hand before it could hit the bare skin of his shoulders.  She winced and Steve immediately put his mug down, then took hers from her hands.  

  


Darcy’s lips fell open as her small hands were suddenly enveloped by large, calloused ones as Steve looked her over for any injury.  Her eyes wandered up from his hands to his forearms, slightly tanned and strong looking, up to carved muscles of his upper arms right up to bare shoulders.  A lot of him was just a few small shades darker than lily white, and Darcy knew he had spent a lot of hours in the sun to get pale Irish skin that color.  

  


Her eyes lingered on his collarbone, which was really a thing of beauty, from an artistic perspective.  And if she were any kind of artist, she’d have a reason for staring at his bare skin with her mouth gaping open.  But it turned out she wasn’t, but she couldn’t stop staring.  And was that loud sound in her ears her breathing or her heart beating so fast?

  


Darcy had spent most of her life around men.  Until she’d met Janie, she hadn’t seen another girl her age.  She’d seen muscled men, and brawny men and tall men that towered over her and she’d turned her nose up at each one of them.  But there was something in the way of unassuming, earnest Steve Rogers.  Like he didn’t realize how tall and broad and good looking he was.  There was a sweetness to him, an honesty in his words and his manner that made Darcy take pause.

  


Her eyes drifted up to meet his finally, and they were big, and blue and full of strength and concern and she realized he was saying something to her.

  


“Miss Darcy, are you alright?  Did you burn yourself?” Steve’s fingers were gently running across her palms continuously.  

  


“I---I’m just fine,” Darcy nodded, giving him a big, gap toothed grin.   She pulled her hands gently away and took a seat next to him at the table.  “I was a chuck wagon cook for eighteen months, I’ve had hotter try to burn me.”

  


“You lived a pretty interesting life so far, Miss Darcy,” Steve smiled shyly at her.

  


Darcy swallowed a mouthful of hot coffee anxiously as she felt her stomach flip a little at the sight of his little smile.  

  
Yes.  She had led a pretty interesting life so far.  And it looked like life just kept on getting more and more interesting. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I updated the tags for sexual tension. Because for the first time, I think I kind of did okay with writing that. Also sharing a bed tropey goodness because that's one of my favorite things. 
> 
> Thanks so much for reading!


	3. A Pail of Milk for Jemmy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a really productive Sunday. It helps when most people are either visiting home, or hungover and in bed. My dedication to underage sobriety means I can write more words. And that makes me happy.
> 
> Here have some Darcy backstory! (warning Sad and mention of parent death).

**Chapter Three: A Pail of Milk for Jemmy**

* * *

  


It was raining even harder during that second day of Darcy’s stay with Steve.  She absolutely forbad him to go out searching, the threat of mudslides was apparently very real thanks to some natural wildfires that had spread across some of the landscape earlier in the summer.  Instead, she set him to just outside and told him to tear apart the bedframe from his old room and rebuild it as a pen that Mary could wander in on sunnier days.  

 

She busied herself in the house, and when he came back in for lunch, he was floored at the small but significant changes she had made.  At the back of the house, she’d set up the laundering equipment that he, Bucky and Natalia had left in the kitchen and used only when they were down to just their last set of underclothes or Jemmy needed fresh clothes.  He could see the sense and practicality in how she’d done it, and he saw the line sitting on the little tree stump with two nails and a hammer and he figured she’d boss him after lunch to go and hang it for her.  She also had a couple of sticks and a length of burlap long and deep enough to provide some kind of shelter for the basins and washing board, which he knew she would also be bossing him to set up.

 

Inside, the windows were now curtained with a pretty blue fabric that Steve had never seen before, so he figured it had come from her own belongings.  They were tied back with white scraps of linen and it made it look homey and welcoming inside.  The kitchen was clean as a whistle, and she’d managed to set up some shelves on her own, and some hooks where cast iron pans were hanging against the wall.  The dining table had a tin cup in the center full of pretty little wildflowers and there was a lovely smell in the air, like sweet apples clinging all around him.

 

Darcy was sitting on the floor near to the dining table in the middle of the room, and she was cooing and pulling faces at a giggly little Jemmy who was on his back on what used to be the bedrolls that Steve and Bucky had used on their trip westward, but were now sewed up together into a large rectangle and covered with more of the blue fabric.  There were other swatches of bright fabric strewn about, and they looked a bit like what Jemmy had been playing with at breakfast.  Different shapes and colors and Jemmy inched his way to his side to reach for a little yellow circle, filled with different things to make noise.  

 

Jemmy babbled and scrunched the fabric in his hands and Steve thought he heard the sound of coins clacking against each other.  

 

“Good boy, Jemmy, what a smart little man, just like your mama!” Darcy applauded him as he waved the circle around, obviously enjoying the tinkling noises.

 

Steve felt a little bit of peace bloom in his heart, which had been bleak and terrified the minute Bucky and Natalia hadn’t shown up when they said they were going to.  When Jemmy had started to cry and whine at the lack of his mother’s bosom, Steve had become a panicked, worried mess.  And now, he felt like he could breathe a little better.  

 

Darcy had turned an inherited, abandoned cabin into a home in the span of four hours.  And what was more was that it gave his heart a fair bit of joy in coming home to it.  He wanted to come home to this warmth and apple smell and pretty bunches of flowers on the table and a giggling baby reaching up for Darcy’s pretty face..

 

“Wash your hands, please,” Darcy bossed him sweetly as she reached out and helped Jemmy to roll over on his belly.  “And cap off in the house, Steve.”

 

“Yes, Miss Darcy,” Steve couldn’t help the sly little smile on his face as he took the cap off and put it on one of the pegs by the door that Darcy had put up.  She really was good at telling him what to do.  And he really just kept on enjoying it more and more and more.  “Why’s it smell so good in here?”

 

“Well I didn’t have the time to fix you a new and interesting kind of lunch for you today on account of setting a few things up,” Darcy waved her hand around.

 

“A few things?” Steve gave her a little, playful half smile.  

 

“Hush up, Mister Steven,” Darcy shooed him.  “Your cornbread and fish are setting by the stove.  And if you eat it and don’t give me any complaints, you get a treat.”

 

“Oh really?” Steve grinned big now as he brought his lunch over to the table, sitting in such a way that he could see her best, feeling his blood begin to warm as she bent over Jemmy.  She’d dressed in her britches that morning, and it really was something scandalous to see her on her knees with her delightfully rounded rear up in the air.  Steve brought his glass of cool, clean water to his mouth and managed to pour a good portion of it down his chin as he couldn’t help but stare.

 

His spluttering and annoyed sound caught Darcy’s attention and she straightened up just in time to see Steve pulling at his shirt, which was soaked all over the front.  He whipped it off quickly and got back up to set it to dry by the stove fire which had never been lit so much before Darcy came.  

 

Darcy’s lips fell open as she watched the muscles in Steve’s back move as he walked away from the table.  He was a thing of beauty as far as she was concerned.  She drew in a slow breath as he bent down to the water basin and refilled his cup.  She felt her cheeks flushing and a fine sheen of sweat pop up out of nowhere on her forehead.  

 

She was saved by Jemmy, who made a whining noise as he wanted to be flipped again.  She looked down and did it for him, giving the baby boy a big, exaggerated smile.  

 

“Your mama and papa are gonna be so proud when they come home!” Darcy promised.  ‘You’re being such a dear boy, Jemmy.”

 

Steve didn’t really acknowledge his shirtless status.  It had been a leftover of working on the cabin and traveling through the heat.  He and Bucky often went shirtless for days on end (especially if the laundering had piled up).  Natalia paid him no mind, although she did enjoy letting her fingers walk along the hard planes of Bucky’s stomach from time to time (or all the time).  Steve often forgot he wasn’t wearing a shirt.  

 

But he kind of had an inkling of what he was doing at the moment.  He really liked that blush on Darcy’s cheeks whenever he caught her looking away from him.

 

He wasn’t the only one who was feeling _something_ , and that put his mind at ease as he went back to the table and took a successful drink of water.

 

“Miss Darcy, do you really think Bucky and Natalia are out there still?” Steve murmured, not wanting Jemmy to hear the doubt in his voice.

 

“Course,” Darcy nodded.  “Natalia is a pistol, and if your friend Bucky has lasted this long with her, then he must be able to keep up.”

 

“What if the---what did you call ‘em? K--Kul---”

 

“Kalapuya,” Darcy finished for him.  She sat back on her heels and gave Steve a confident look.  “Natalia and Bucky would have found no trouble with the Kalapuya.”

 

“But how can you know?” Steve said with no malice in his voice.

 

Darcy sighed and picked up Jemmy, cradling him to her, her hands petting at the little brown curls that promised to be wild and unruly as he grew.  She got up to her feet and carried Jemmy to the kitchen, grabbing his prepared bottle and popping it into his mouth as she swayed back and forth and up and down with him ever  so slightly.  She walked very slowly to Steve, and sat down right next to him on the low bench.  

 

She felt her cheeks flushing again when he reached out and pushed a curl behind her ear that had been tickling at her nose.

 

“I grew up with the Kalapuya, from the age of five to eight,” Darcy revealed quietly and calmly, as if she were just telling Steve what she was making for dinner.  “When they started getting sick with the fever, they sent me away.”

 

“How’d you---how did that happen?” Steve asked softly.  “What happened to your parents, Darcy?”

 

“My Pappy died when I was four.  He came West early, wound up a little north until the British came and pushed him out.  He had made a good deal of money though and sent for a wife back East, my _mama_ ,” there was a bitter twist to Darcy’s words.  “She hated it.  But she had me right quick after they was married.  But then Pappy came down sick with the fever.  And the Kalapuya worked with Pappy across the river, they respected each other.  So when Pappy died, they would bring me and mama  food and wood.  But mama….that weren’t enough for her.”

 

Jemmy was finished with his bottle quick and Darcy brought him up over her shoulder.  Her hand was shaking and Steve got the feeling that she’d never told this story before, except maybe to Janie.  He reached out a hand and patted on Jemmy’s back until he burped, then Steve continued to stroke up and down the little boy’s back as he drifted off for an after bottle nap.  

 

“A man came touring ‘round the area, he took a fancy to mama.  She told him she was never married.  Said Pappy was her father and that he’d died and left her alone and unprotected.  She led him to believe she’d been... _untouched_ ,” Darcy whispered.  “He took her back East.”

 

“Miss Darcy?” Steve shook his head.  “She didn’t leave you…”

 

“Told me to hide when he came to pick her up, left me there.  I don’t take after Pappy at all in looks, I look exactly like my mama, if a lot shorter than her,” Darcy shrugged a little.  “If he’d a seen me, there was no way she coulda passed me off as a sister.  And she was scared I’d a slipped and called her Mama in front of him.  So she told me to be quiet and hide in the root cellar while she talked to a friend.  I stayed down there a long time waiting.  The Chief of the Kalapuya found me a little while later.”

 

“How long, Miss Darcy?” Steve asked, not really wanting to know the answer.  He couldn’t imagine what she’d gone through.  He thought of his own sainted mother, he couldn’t imagine her doing something so awful.

 

“Three days,” Darcy’s answer could barely be heard.  “The tribe took me in for a spell, raised me up to be strong and know how to live proper and off the land the right way.  Then sent me away before I could get sick.”

 

They remained silent for a while, Jemmy’s even breathing as he slept the only sound in the room aside from the crackling of the stove fire every once in awhile.   Steve’s hand went from Jemmy’s back to his bottom, where Darcy’s hand was and he lay his on top of hers, his long fingers stroking at her smaller ones.  

 

“Thank you for telling me that, Miss Darcy,” he gave her a kind, sympathetic smile.  “And I’m sorry that happened to you.”

 

“I got by, and it brought me here,” Darcy managed a smile for him.  “And Steve, I think you can drop the Miss now, if you please.”

 

“Darcy,” Steve nodded.  

 

Darcy full out grinned at him.  “You are a really good man, Steve.  Real good.”

 

“Hey now, don’t be thinking I’m gonna marry you,” Steve stole her teasing words and it had never sounded more like a joke than when he had said it.  

 

“Natalia and I talked about the Kalapuya, I told her that if she ever got into trouble to tell them she was a friend of mine,” Darcy revealed.  “They would help her, Steve.  I promise.”

 

“I believe you,” Steve nodded.  “I just wish I knew what happened.”

 

“Maybe their pathway got washed out by mud,” Darcy hypothesized.  “Maybe one of ‘em fell and the trip back is taking longer.  But I promise, you’re gonna find em.  Natalia seems to know how to survive at all costs, I’m sure she and Bucky’ll be back for their sweet boy.”

 

“I believe you, Darcy,” Steve repeated.  They were sitting awful close, and the way she was looking at him, with soft eyes and the flush in her cheeks felt like something big was about to happen.  His hand was still on top of hers and he felt the soft linen of her shirt against the bare skin of his arm.  

 

“Your sweet treat,” Darcy murmured, looking up at him with half lidded eyes.

 

“You’re sweet,” Steve answered, staring at her lips.  “Like an angel that came down from a cloud to save me and Jemmy.”

 

“No, your, I made you a...hold on,” Darcy stammered, hopping to her feet and taking Jemmy to his cradle.  She then went back to the stove and dug around in it with two wooden spoons, pulling out two blackened globes.

 

She put them down on a plate and grabbed a knife and two spoons before heading back to Steve.

 

“Mud apples,” Darcy explained.  She sliced through the ash covered apples, and a wave of delicious scent of thoroughly baked apple hit both of them in the face.  She handed Steve a spoon and smiled at him winningly, different than when she normally grinned at him.

 

“I feel like this is a bribe of some kind,” Steve remarked.  He didn’t really care as he took a hot spoonful of apple and blew on it before eating it.  It was delicious.  

 

“Can you milk Mary for me?” Darcy wondered.  “She don’t like me so much this time of the month and I’d rather not get a goat head to the gut.”

 

Steve blushed a little as he took another scoop of apple.  Natalia talked about her lady troubles once a month too.  It was a private kind of thing that was talked about between a man and a wife.  Steve also perked up a little as he thought about how old Darcy actually was.  If she’d been on her own for ten years after the Kalapuya turned her away at the age of eight, that would mean she was eighteen.  Which wasn’t too young to be thinking seriously about marriage and certainly wasn’t too young for his twenty-two years of age.

  


“Please?” Darcy wheedled.  “While you do it, I’ll draw out a map of the area so’s you can search when the rain stops.”

 

“Alright, Darcy,” Steve smiled at her around a mouth full of apple.  “How hard could it be?”

 

* * *

 

 

It was very, very, very, very hard.

 

Mary didn’t want to be milked by anyone.  Not just Darcy.  Mary actually wanted to just butt her head against Steve’s groin over and over again.  And when she couldn’t get her head against his groin, she’d just slam it against his rear.  And when that wasn’t in reach, then his hip was fair game.  All in all, she just wanted to ram her head against him over and over again.

 

He hadn’t even gotten to put the stool down next to her.  She really didn’t want to be milked.

 

“Mary.  Mary!   _Mary_!” Steve called out almost desperately as he jumped as high as he could to avoid another blow to his groin.  “Just calm down, girl, calm down!”

 

Mary wasn’t having it.  She refused to be calm.  The idea of being calm somehow offended her.  She let out a snort before bringing her head down on his hip again, definitely leaving a bruise that time.  

 

“Try singing a song!” Darcy called out from where she had her laundry started.  “Starky always sang a tune and she’d let him milk her no problem.”

 

“I imagine _Starky_ has a fairer hand with the ladies,” Steve rolled his eyes.  He glared down at the obstinate goat.  “Even the ladies with beards.”

 

Darcy made a quick run down in the rain.  Jemmy was safe and snug in his cradle for his afternoon nap, and she wanted to get a start on soaking Steve’s clothing which might have been able to stand up on their own at that point.  She stayed carefully out of sight while Steve tried to get Mary properly into the milking pen.  

 

“ _Dodo, l’enfant do, L’enfant dormira bien vite.  Dodo, l’enfant do, l’enfant dormira bientot_ ….”

 

If the sweet sounding French words being sung by Darcy hadn’t of immediately made Mary stand stock still, then Steve probably wouldn’t have had to worry about the care and upkeep of his manhood anymore, because she would have had a free shot to his groin.  By the second syllable of the little lullaby, Steve was slack-jawed and bewitched.  

 

Darcy had the voice of an angel.  Sweet and pure and clear like a bell.

 

“Steve, what’re you standing there for? Get to milkin’!” Darcy whispered before she quickly began singing again.

 

Steve nodded dumbly before somehow cramming his long legs down enough in order to sit on the low stool, shoving a bucket under Mary and setting to milking.  Darcy kept on singing in French, lullabies and what sounded like raucous bar songs alike.  It brought a calm to Steve and it felt like a blink of an eye before one of the buckets was completely full.  He went for the second and got about half of it filled before Mary was through.

 

“You’re French?” Steve wondered when he finally got out of the little shed with his bucket and a half full of milk.  

 

“Dunno,” Darcy shrugged.  “Pappy used to sing me those songs, he might’ve been.”

 

“It was beautiful, Darcy,” Steve grinned down at her.

 

“Complimentin’ me doesn’t mean I’m gonna marry you, Steve,” Darcy smiled up at him warmly.

 

“What would mean you’re gonna marry me?” Steve asked, mimicking her unique accent.  

 

“Usually a preacher would be involved,” Darcy shrugged coyly.  She shook off the thoughtful reverie quickly and pointed to the cabin, “Go on, now, take the milk to the kitchen so I can work on some butter.”

 

Steve grinned and went for the cabin, but stopped in his tracks when her hand was suddenly on his rear end.

 

“Mary got some hay on your rear,” Darcy explained, blushing.

 

“I’m pretty sure if you’re touching there, you have to marry me, Miss Darcy,” the corner of Steve’s lips lifted up in a smile.

 

“Well, we’ll need witnesses,” Darcy joked.  “When Jemmy’s parents are back, we’ll talk.”

 

* * *

 

 

The soft moaning noises were the first noises that Bucky had made in over eighteen hours.  Natalia turned away from the mouth of the little cave she had drug him into eighteen hours ago and looked to him hopefully.  He needed to wake up so they could get back to Steve and Jemmy.  She winced as she felt her breasts ache with fullness.  

 

She trusted Steve.  Not only because he was Bucky’s best friend.  Steve was smart and resourceful and loyal above all else.  He would care for her sweet baby until she could return.  But Jemmy was so young, and he needed his mother in order to survive.  

 

“James,” Natalia whispered, going to him carefully.  

 

“Hmmmph,” he opened his mouth slightly and blinked beautiful light blue eyes open.  Jemmy had inherited those eyes.  So pale in color they looked nearly gray some days.  “What happened?”

 

“There’s….there was someone who knew me.  Followed us here to Oregon,” Natalia explained.  “We were rushing to get away and you fell, hit your head---”

 

Bucky hissed as he tried to move.

 

“Your ankle seems broken,” Natalia said quickly.  “Don’t try to move yet.”

 

Bucky didn’t move much, he turned his head to look up at his wife, eyes moving over her curiously.  

 

“We are at least ten miles from home...we are safe here, but we need to get home to Jemmy and Steve,” Natalia whispered, a soft smile on her face as delicate fingers pushed heavy brown waves off of his forehead.  “Let me get you water---”

 

Bucky reached out a hand and grabbed hers to keep her right there.

 

“One question though---who are you?”

 

Natalia blinked at him.  Her mouth opened and no sound came out for a full thirty seconds before she shook her head.

 

“I’m your wife, Natalia.”

 

“Huh---how’d I find a wife as pretty as you?” Bucky mumbled, sleepy and confused. He let up on the grip of her hand and she managed to turn and get a skin full of water, bringing it to his lips and letting him take little sips.  He was blinking up at her, his blinks becoming longer and more pronounced each time.

 

“I won you in a card game,” Natalia answered.

 

“I’m lousy at cards.  I think,” Bucky looked slightly annoyed that he couldn’t quite remember.  “Good thing though, cause you’re really beautiful.  Like those fancy paintings of beautiful redheads…”

 

“Titian,” Natalia supplied easily.  It had been the second time she had had to supply the painter’s name to Bucky.  He’d said pretty much the same thing to her when he’d first met her.

 

“Whaass my name?” his words were muddled.

  
“Bucky,” Natalia answered.  

 

“What the hell kind of a name is Bucky?” he said, his words barely discernible as he drifted back to sleep.

 

She swore quietly in Russian when a sound at the cave’s entrance had her scrambling to her feet, looking defensive and annoyed.  A native stood before her, an arrow notched and pointed right at her, ready to let it fly.  Behind him, she could see ten more men, all ready to attack.  Slowly she lifted up her hands.

  
“Don’t shoot...I’m a friend of Darcy’s.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would never let anything happen to sweet Jemmy's parents. Well, except for all this so far. 
> 
> Translation for the french, "sleep sleep child you will sleep soon", I think. It's a lullaby of some sorts. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	4. A Walk in the Woods For Jemmy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really having a good time writing this story. A really good time!

  
  


**Chapter Four:  A Walk in the Woods For Jemmy**

  
  


* * *

  
  


Steve was finding it difficult keeping up with little Miss Darcy Lewis.  The third day of their cohabitation dawned, and Steve swore he felt something warm against his arm as his mind floated forward into consciousness, but then it was gone and by the time the sun went just up and over the horizon, he started to smell strong coffee and something delicious frying up.

 

In the last twenty-four hours, she'd made maps and detailed instructions on how he should go about looking for Natalia and Bucky.  She'd darned all of his socks, done a good portion of the mountainous loads of laundry.  She'd sewed up a new little outfit for Jemmy, who had been outgrowing his swaddling and diapers fast.  She'd made a list of things that the household would need before summer passed completely and she'd managed to feed them all.  

 

And she’d looked gorgeous doing it all, Steve would be quick to remind himself.

 

He was used to being around women who weren’t particularly  gifted in the domestic arts.  His own mother, God rest her soul, had been the unofficial nursemaid for the neighborhood back home and had little to no time or inclination to cook a meal or sew a shirt together.  And Natalia certainly wasn’t suited well for making a house a home, but Steve figured he wouldn’t want Bucky’s wife any other way.  Missus Barnes was a gun toting lady who was skilled at hunting and better at drinking moonshine than Steve himself and she was perfect just that way.

 

Darcy being so good at running a household the way she did wasn’t tied to the fact that she was a lady, in Steve’s opinion.  It was just the phenomenal set of skills that she happened to have as a person, and seeing the results of all of her hard work left him half in love with her already.  He’d always taken care of himself since he was a small boy, and suddenly she was there to lend a hand and it gave him such a warm feeling inside that he half didn’t know what to do with himself.

 

Steve smelled that fresh, sunny sweet grass smell of her hair and felt something stirring low in his gut at the scent memory it invoked.  Pretty brown, wild curls, tied back, looking soft to the touch and smelling like springtime.  Bright blue eyes that twinkled and a mouth he had no God given right to be thinking about the way he constantly thought about it.  

 

Half sleepy dreams and images floated through a body that was slowly and gently floating towards consciousness.  Flashes of pale skin and nimble little fingers and all the imaginings of what he could possibly do with her in the bed he shared fluttered through him as he let out a sleepy, low moan while his eyes fluttered open.

 

It was a good way to wake up though, if not a little uncomfortable as Darcy Lewis certainly aroused certain things in Steve Rogers.  He felt hot and hard and  _ wanting _ in a way that he didn’t think he had ever felt before in all of his twenty-two years of life.  

 

The bed next to him was thankfully empty and he went blindly through his usual morning routine, purposefully ignoring his aroused state, as he’d of felt like a minion of the Devil if he had tried to relieve himself with the object of his desire under the same roof.  He began to get undressed until he was right down to his skin, washing in the basin and dressing again.  He may have heard an odd squeaking noise at one point when he was washing his face till it was bright and clean and less likely to go back to sleep.  The noise had probably been an ambitious mouse, trying to get into the warm cabin during the cool night.  He thought nothing of it as he walked back to his room, still nude as the day he was born, to obtain clothing that Darcy had deposited there after she had successfully washed all the grime and sweat out of them.

 

Finally, once he had gotten on a clean pair of drawers at least, he wandered into the kitchen, looking like he would still very much like to go back to bed and feel that soft warmth against his bicep that he had felt before he had woken that morning.  He sat at his place at the dining table and smiled down at the cup of coffee warmly and lovingly.  Natalia had always needled him that coffee was actually his one true love in life, and he'd be hard pressed to argue with her before.  But now, well, he wasn't calling what he felt for Darcy love quite yet.

 

But he smiled up at Darcy, and his expression got impossibly wider and warmer as she brought a plate of breakfast to the table, setting it in front of him.  Her face was flushed with crimson red spots on her cheeks and on her neck and on the little peek of bosom that Steve could make out behind the man's work shirt she was currently wearing.  She said nothing to him and turned back to the fire, clanking pots and pans around noisily, as if she wanted Jemmy to wake up a little bit faster.

 

"Darcy?  What's the matter?" Steve asked before stuffing his mouth full to bursting with griddle cakes.  A bit of precious molasses dripped from one perfect golden piece of his breakfast, right onto his left pec and he looked down.

 

_ Oh. _

 

He was such a scatterbrained dunce some of the time.  He probably should have gotten fully dressed before coming out for breakfast, but he was a creature of habit, and he had never bothered with propriety with Natalia, especially since she didn’t bother with it with him.  Many a time she’d run around Steve in only Bucky’s night shirt swamping her frame, and she had no problem with whipping out a breast and popping it into the baby’s mouth as they sat eating salted fish or grilled meat at the dining table.  

 

Steve would have to re-acclimate to being around a person he didn’t consider a close, gender neutral sibling.

 

Jemmy began crying on cue and Darcy grabbed a bottle and  _ ran _ to go and fetch him.  Steve grimaced, but refused to waste the delicious hotness of the breakfast and coffee by going and putting on a shirt and pants.  Besides, if Darcy saw him in his all together, and was offended, it was best to let her calm down alone for a moment.  

 

Jemmy's morning babbles began in the bedroom when Steve went back to finally put on clothes for the day.  By the time he came back out, Darcy and Jemmy were gone.  A note was left on his cap, stating that she would be right back. Steve knew that she had planned to forage for plantables for a vegetable garden she had planned on starting immediately if not sooner, so he nodded and took a quick look around the cozy cabin she had turned into something home-like and lovely before grabbing his cap and the maps she had set out for him.

  
  


He'd saddled up the horse, and looked around the homestead hopefully, wanting to say goodbye before he set out for a day of searching in earnest.  But Darcy must of still been upset at him for walking around without being properly clothed and he sighed.  If she was staying around, he'd have to remember to be more careful.  The last thing he wanted to do was make her uncomfortable.

 

A little itchy thought in the back of his brain told him that she had lived with the natives for years, and they dressed in tiny scraps of clothing sometimes for their ceremonies.  And she had worked in a whorehouse.  And he knew that Anthony Stark wound up nude as a jaybird and sprawled out on the sole dirt road in town most days.  So it was just something about seeing  _ Steve _ in his drawers that made her uncomfortable.

 

His search consisted of walking the horse carefully in ever widening circles around their property's perimeters, taking careful time to search over nooks and crannies that the two may have gotten stuck in.  He'd gotten to about a mile and a half into the woods when he finally realized what had happened that morning.

 

He turned redder than Darcy had.  Redder than the color of the longjohns that Bucky liked to wear from September until April.  Redder than anything.  

 

She'd not just seen him in his drawers.  She'd squeaked when she'd seen him by the wash basin, with his manhood semi-hard because of his daydreaming about her as he woke.  

 

He was a menace to society, was what he was.  Bucky had always picked on him that he was half dead until five hours after waking, but this took the prize, for sure.  He'd scandalized the poor young lady and he didn't know how he was going to look her in the face again.

 

He absently wondered if she found him handsome, even in his all together.  He personally thought the male form was humorous to look at to say the least.  It was nothing in comparison to those pretty pictures of bare ladies he'd seen reprinted in books back in New York City.  But still, he supposed he might look nice.  And she'd been blushing so splotchy that it had been down right pretty.  

 

Maybe she liked it a little.

  
  


That thought perked Steve up a bit, and he went back to his search.  The horse was walking in a gentle sloping circle, and Steve was surprised that his field of vision had been nothing but trees, rocks and earth one minute, and the next there was a man standing there.  His skin was darker than a savage, and Steve thought perhaps he was a freed slave, looking to start anew in the West, but he was dressed like a savage from head to toe.  And the unfriendly spear he held at Steve menacingly definitely was not a good thing.

 

"What do you want?" Steve demanded.  He immediately thought of Darcy and Jemmy.  They were back at the cabin, unprotected and vulnerable.  Darcy said she was safe with the local savages, but perhaps this one wasn't quite local, he didn't look like it at least.

 

"Darcy," the man clipped out.  "What've you done with her?"

 

There was that accent again.  Strange and Southern, but maybe mixed with French a little.  The man spoke like Darcy.

 

"What's your business with her?" Steve shook his head.  The hell if he'd lead someone who looked this dangerous back to the girl he intended to marry someday soon.  Hopefully.  If he hadn't scared her off with his complete disregard for decency earlier that day.

 

"No damned man speaks for that girl, you shouldn't be tryin' to start," was the flippant answer.  "Take me to her."

 

"Hell no," Steve argued.

 

The spear went up and Steve faced it just as stubbornly as a mule, even though he was basically unarmed.  Natalia had taken the pistol, because she refused to go anywhere without a weapon of some kind, but that left Steve to search around defenseless.  Not that the pistol (that Steve didn't shoot well to begin with) could have done much against a flying spear at his face.

 

"Sammy, no!" Darcy's voice called out loudly, followed by the babbling of Jemmy echoing in the woods.  She rushed up between the men and Steve hopped down off of his horse, trying to get in front of her to defend her and the baby that was strapped to her back in a sling.  She put her hand in his though and kept him right where he was.  She was winded, and was taking in big gasps of breath through a wide open mouth.

 

"He's not forcing you into somethin', is he?" the mysterious _Sammy_ demanded irately.  "First you got away from the Swedes by the skin of your teeth, now you're taken hostage by this Yankee."

 

Sammy was definitely not a Kalapuya tribe member.  But nor was he a normal pioneer looking to strike it rich in the west.

 

"Not all the Swedes were bad, it was just Jane's new brother-in-law that tried to force my hand there a little, stop exaggeratin' Sammy, it's as bad as lyin'! Pappy always told you---"

 

"Someone tried to force you---" Steve began, but was cut off when she crowded in close to him, her hand still gripping his, but she angled her body in a way that her bosom pressed against his bicep and Steve felt a little slack in the jaw.  

 

"Another story for another time," Darcy shook her head.  "Steve Rogers, please meet Sam Wilson. Sam here's my brother."

 

"He's your what now?" Steve blinked.  He was a fairly progressive young man.  But Sam had a different skin color than Darcy completely.

 

"You know, how Bucky's your brother," Darcy explained with a patient little smile.  

 

"But he's dressed like a sav---"

 

Sam's face darkened and Steve shook his head quickly by way of an apology.  "Like the Kalapuya."

 

"Well sure he is, he was taken as a war bride," Darcy grinned mischievously.

 

"I done told you to stop saying such things!" Sam huffed out indignantly.  

 

"Pappy saw Mister Samuel Wilson here being sold like a head of cattle about five years afore I was born.  He bought him and set him free right in front of the evil man's face who had taken the poor kid from his mother," Darcy explained.  "He came to live at our house before Daddy shipped him to schoolin’ in California.  I spent my first four summers with Sammy by a waterin' hole.  And then he got taken as a war bride."

 

"Darcy Anne Lewis!" Sam scolded.

 

"He came back for me when he found out Pappy died and mama left," Darcy blithely ignored Sam's annoyance.  "Found me with the Kalapuya.  The medicine man's daughter took a shine to him, so's being the clever thing she was, she challenged him to a contest and he lost badly and she won herself a handsome husband."

 

"She picked weaving as the contest, it weren't no contest of strength," Sam insisted with bravado.  "And she's my wife good and proper anyways, and we got two little ones to show for it."

 

"But she did steal you from your regular life," Darcy shrugged playfully.

 

"I'm a well respected man in the tribe there was no---"

 

"Sounds like stealing," Steve agreed with Darcy, looking down at her with a playful little smirk.

 

Sam said a couple of words in the Kalapuya tongue and they sounded viciously like curses.  Finally he stopped and pointed at Steve directly.  "I was supposed to find Darcy for you and send her here to care for the young'in, but it looks like she took care of that already."

 

As if on cue, Jemmy babbled happily.

 

"You know where Bucky and Natalia are?" Steve asked with wide eyes, suddenly very serious.

 

"Found 'em holed up in a cave 'bout five miles from here.  Woman is fine, but the man's got a lame ankle and a head full of nothing right now," Sam reported.  "Can't remember his own wife or even where we are.  Only knows his name cause his wife keeps telling him and retelling him."

 

"We'll go and bring them home, he'll remember if he sees his son," Steve insisted.

  
  


"You'll be going nowhere," Sam shook his head.  "The red woman says there's danger coming.  Someone is looking for her, and you're to stick close to the homestead.  And the baby needs to be kept safe.  You aren’t meant to let anyone know the baby is hers."

 

"Would this person after her come after this sweet baby?" Darcy looked appalled.  

 

"She says yes," Sam nodded.  He addressed Steve carefully, "We'll take care of your friends, you take care of ours."

 

There was something in the way Sam was staring at Steve that made Darcy bristle.  Sam had often tried to pull this kind of overprotective behavior whenever their paths would cross since she was turned away from the tribe during their time of sickness.  Sam, at the tender age of sixteen, had been a survivor of the fever and had stayed with his new bride.  But he still kept dropping in on Darcy at least once a year, going so far as travelling hundreds of miles to annoy her in that way only an older brother could.

 

"You sleepin' in the stable?" Sam demanded of Steve.

 

"That's none of your damned business!" Darcy called out angrily.

 

"If he's not sleepin' in that stable, you should be high tailin' it to the priest in the morning, girl," Sam disputed.  "I ain't meeting your pappy at the pearly white gates someday to have him smack me upside my head for lettin' you live in sin."

 

Steve was red in the face and staring down at the ground guiltily, making it look so much worse than it actually was.

 

"Meet me here in one week and I'll tell you how your friends are.  And there'd better be a ring on her finger or I will smack your ornery friend who can't remember his name upside the head until he can remember proper," Sam warned.

 

"SAMMY!" Darcy dropped Steve's hand finally and began to stomp towards the man, who backed away quickly and turned, rushing through the forest like he was a native tribesman who had been doing it his whole life.  She turned to face Steve, who had a thoughtful look on his face.   "I ain't marryin' you, Steve..."

 

"Why's that?  You---you pining for someone?  Some Swedish man?" Steve asked quietly.

 

"NO," Darcy shook her head.  "We hardly know each other."

  
  


"That's the way things are in the West though, isn't it?" Steve wondered with a smile, reaching out and grabbing her hand and pulling her back towards his horse.  "Don't you like me?"  

 

"I---I---yes, I like you a fair bit," Darcy admitted.  She made a gulping noise when Steve's hands went for her waist and lifted her up into the horse's saddle.  She shifted Jemmy to her front in his sling and Steve was quick to follow her up on the horse, settling behind her with his thighs bracketing the soft lines of her body.  

 

"I'm fixin' to marry you, Darcy Lewis," Steve promised, not knowing where his sudden confidence came from.  Knowing his friends were safe had given him complete peace and calm now and he would be happy to focus more on the little woman who had bewitched him now.  "Just to get my intentions clear before your War Bride brother can come back and try to put that spear through me."

 

Darcy's heart began beating a little fast as the horse went at a very slow walk back towards the cabin.  This was fast, she knew that.  But her pappy took his dear, sweet time selecting his mother, meeting and then corresponding with her for two whole years before he started the process of bringing her out West.  And in all that time, he'd never seen her mother for what she was, an opportunist who would hide her daughter away out of sight while she ran for a more comfortable life back East.

 

And Sam had met his bride two days before losing the contest that would mean they were to be wed proper, and they'd now lasted eleven years with no signs of slowing.  

 

Little Jemmy pulled at the fabric in front of Darcy's shirt, as if he were hungry again, and Darcy thought of the little boys parents while she put his little hand in his mouth to soothe him until they could return to the cabin.  They'd married before they could even commit the color of each other's eyes to memory and they seemed to be doing just fine.  In the hands of a native tribe, one with memory loss and one being chased by an unknown enemy, but still, happy to be together, she was sure.

  
  


She jostled in the saddle and her backside pressed harder against something hard and warm.  She squeaked out again, just as she had done that morning when Steve had been washing in the nude and inched a little bit further away.  To his credit, Steve inched backwards as well.

 

"I always wanted a chicken coop," Darcy blurted.

 

"What's that, sweet girl?" Steve wondered.

 

"I always wanted a chicken coop," Darcy repeated.  "I ran around so much, I never got the chance to tend chickens.  Mary the goat and her mama June could always come with wherever I wound up, but chickens ain't so transient."

 

Her cheeks were flaming red and she felt his fingers on her hips press a little harder into her skin.  She didn’t quite believe the conversation they were having.  The words and sentiments felt a little too good to be true.  Little Miss Darcy Lewis was confident in a lot of things in life.  She knew how to fry a chicken better than anyone in the world, of that she was sure.  She had read all the books she could find about running a proper household and she knew she could do it, and had been happily putting all of her well thought out theories into action in the past three days.  And she knew that if she had to, she could make it on her own, because she’d been doing that for a good portion of her life.

 

But Darcy didn’t quite believe that a man so good as Steven Rogers would want her.  Her own mama hadn’t wanted her.  The Kalapuya hadn’t wanted her with them, even if at the time it was for her own safety.  She’d never gone back to them for a long period of time, always feeling like a visitor intruding on someone’s hospitality.  

 

She’d felt like that ever since her mother had tucked her into the root cellar and told her to hush up for her own good.  Janie’s Swedish prince hadn’t wanted her to come along with them for their trip to his home country, claiming it was for her safety.  She’d spent a lifetime of not being wanted.  She half figured that once Jemmy had his mother back, Steve and his friends would be sending her on her lonely way, no matter his teasing about marrying her.

 

But a chicken coop was a piece of permanence.  And in its own little, simple way, it was her test to see if Steve was serious.  If he built her one, maybe he might be serious about wanting to keep her.

 

"Miss Darcy Lewis, would you marry me if I built you a chicken coop?" Steve said softly and sweetly in her ear.

 

"And I'll need chickens too, I think the Barton's down the river'd sell a box of chicks and a few hens to start anyone out," Darcy nodded.  "Missus Barton says she's got too many chickens to deal with down there."

 

"Alright, looks like I'm building a chicken coop," Steve smiled.  "And soon as the last chick is put in there, you and I are gonna go see the Reverend..."

 

"Also Barton.  Preacher Barton.  He farms mostly, but preaches for fun," Darcy rolled her eyes at the memory of an interesting, half intoxicated, rambling sermon given on top of Anthony Stark’s bar.  .

 

Steve grinned, bigger and brighter than he had ever done before.  He leaned his top half into her at least, and it made for a funny sight to see, Steve's tall body bent awkwardly so that his nethers didn't press against her, but his chin was on her shoulder.

 

"If I build that chicken coop, will you say yes to being my wife?” Steve asked softly.  

 

“If you make me a chicken coop, I might be inclined to accepting that position, yes,” Darcy couldn’t help but feel a thrill go through her as his fingers flexed against her hips again.  She didn’t want to build such elaborate daydream castles in the sky, but Steve was certainly persuasive.  She tried to keep her practical wits about her and joked, “I’ll believe it when I see it, though, city boy.”

 

* * *

 

 

Natalia Barnes, née Romanova, spoke four languages fluently and could read and comprehend three additional languages.  She had been to eighteen different countries before the age of 10, and when she finally wound up in America, she was ready to settle down at the ripe old age of 21.  Of course her Uncle Ivan had needed help getting out of a jam with some brutal youths in the epicenter of the Five Boroughs.  

 

She excelled at that kind of thing.  Getting people out of messes.  Trickery and deceit.  Violence and subterfuge.  It would be her last job, she decided and she went about it the same way she did everything she put her mind to.  Expertly and very well.

 

In return, she requested that her Uncle Ivan help her to find a new, calmer life.  She had watched Bucky Barnes and Steven Rogers pulling in some day labor down by the docks, and from the moment she saw Bucky's smile and carefree laugh, she was hooked.  She was smitten with the way he joked with his friend.  She was captivated by the way strong, lean muscles made the hard work he was doing look effortless.  And she quite liked the set of his jaw and the dimple in his chin seemed to be as good as a place to kiss as any other.  

 

So she used her skill set one last time to get Bucky into that card game versus her Uncle.  An unconventional way to find a husband, to be sure, but time wasn’t on her side.  Old enemies were chasing after her now and she didn’t have the patience or the resources to take down a gang of angry men after her Uncle in addition to a large force of Russians who were intent on tracking her down and bringing her back to the Motherland.  She hadn’t wanted to move West at first, she’d hoped to settle in New York City with her newly won groom, but the West would offer a new start and anonymity.   

 

So she packed up Bucky and Steve’s life easily enough, bought a cabin with the dowry her Uncle Ivan had given her, and off they went.  

 

But Niko followed.  

 

Niko had been in charge of the orphanage Natasha had spent her very early years in.  He’d quickly moved her into the training program that had given her all her knowledge and talent.  She was meant to do great things for her home country, involving death, destruction and lies.  So she’d fled, but she’d underestimated her worth to her previous guardians.  

 

They had wanted her back.  And Niko, with his obsession with her talent and beauty, had followed her further than any of the others.  If he found out that Jemmy was her beloved child, he would surely use him to bring her back to him.  

 

Niko would have to die, Natalia knew this.  She welcomed it, in fact.  She hoped to have his blood be the last that her hands would ever spill.  But she was a wife and a mother now.  While she abhorred housework and was a failure at domestic endeavors, she knew how to protect and defend and plan.  

 

Steve had travelled West with them because yes, he was Bucky’s best friend.  But Natalia had refused to allow him to build a cabin on the other side of the land they’d bought, because she knew that Steve would protect her son.  Natalia had studied the townspeople carefully those first few weeks and she had purposefully followed Darcy on one of the girl’s foraging trips and befriended her.  In the worst case scenario, Natalia knew that Darcy would ensure that her son thrived in her absence.  

 

But now Bucky was sleeping fitfully in a little tent of the Kalapuya, and the medicine man was speaking in a language she didn’t understand, which was a very difficult thing for Natalia to deal with.  She prided herself on knowing everything at all times.  She stared at the little woman behind the medicine man, who was the one actually doing all the tending, wrapping up Bucky’s ankle after placing a poultice on it.  

 

Natalia had the social graces to wait until the medicine man nodded at her and left the tent before rounding on the small woman who was packing away herbs and leaves.  

 

“You speak English?” she demanded.

 

“My husband has taught me,” the young woman nodded.

 

“One, if you teach me your language, I will teach you how to get whatever you should want from your husband,” Natalia promised.  “Two, what is wrong with my husband?”

 

“His foot will heal quickly, there is no break, his mind however, is less likely to heal quickly,” came the quick answer.  The little healer desperately wanted to convince her husband to take part in the fertility ceremonies in the coming months.  Not for children.  To ward them off.  She had just made their youngest child self-sufficient and did not want another mewling babe at her breast.   She knew she could just not lay with Samuel, but that wasn't an option for her.  She found her husband quite bewitching.

 

“Is there something I can do?” Natalia wondered, her hand tenderly stroking Bucky’s face, her thumb pressing ever so lightly into that beloved dimple in his chin.  “Did your father have any advice?”

 

“You are from the colonies, you will not believe such things,” the little healer disputed.  Those colonists never believed what the natives had tried to tell them.  

 

“I will,” Natalia promised.  “Anything to bring him back to his right mind.”

 

“My father suggested a piece of home would bring his mind back---”

 

“We can’t travel, not yet---”

 

“Home is not a place, home is the feeling of warmth and love and happiness,” the small Kalapuya woman insisted.  “Surely, as his mate, you know of ways to bring that to him. In private ways.”

 

Natalia hesitated in rolling her eyes.  If Bucky were in his right mind and could remember it, he would have been all too pleased with the Kalapuyan method for memory retrieval.  As it stood, she now had to figure out how to seduce her husband, who could not remember her.  She finally took a deep breath and nodded.

 

“Once I have word from your husband about my child and Steven, I will need a little privacy.”

 

* * *

 

 

“Another?” 

 

Anthony Stark didn’t much like the new stranger in town.  Their town consisted of a single street with a merchant, his own bar/restaurant/hotel/whorehouse, a sherriff’s office and jail  (that was currently very empty), and a tent that was meant to be a church (that Preacher Barton used for dances instead).  But the small town had certainly had its fair share of strangers as of late.  

  
  


First Darcy came along about eight months ago, plunking a very handsome gold coin on the bar and telling him she’d be taking a room in exchange for being his new cook.  And he’d resisted until he’d tasted the first chicken she’d fried that very night.  Then came Natalia and Bucky, the newlyweds, along with their newborn son, and their boring chaperone, Steven.  Tony was upset with Steve, because the man had been in town for three months and hadn’t utilized any of the girls upstairs once.  

 

And to top it all off, he’d stolen away the best and most reliable cook that Tony had ever had.  

 

Tony was not Steve’s biggest fan, to say the least.

 

But the latest newcomer was definitely Tony’s least favorite of all.  He had spoken one word.   _ Whiskey _ , and the accent had been suspect from the start.  He was staring at everything with cold, calculating eyes.  And he hadn’t even asked Tony about the services the upstairs ladies provided.

 

“This woman....” the stranger pushed a small portrait across the bar.  Brilliant red hair, smooth ivory skin, dark blue eyes.  It was undoubtedly Natalia Barnes.

 

“Never seen her before in my life, but I got a girl upstairs that’ll wear a wig for you, if red is your weakness,” Tony gave a confident little smirk to the stranger.  “I can commiserate with you friend, I too, have a weakness for redheads.”

 

“She married a James Barnes,” the stranger continued on as if Tony hadn’t been talking at all, which annoyed Tony to no end.  He liked to be listened to after all.  “I know that she has settled nearby, I saw the proof of purchase. I am just a modest preacher, looking for a relative.”

 

“Yeah she settled nearby!” one of the lumbermen who worked at the mill ten miles away roared.  “Snotty little Russian thing, gave me the stink eye when I complimented her---”

 

“Rumlow, go take a long walk!’ Tony walked down the bar and took Rumlow’s glass from him.    

 

“I gots an appointment with Maria!” he argued.

  
“She’ll tend to you eventually, go take a walk,” Tony ordered, and turned to face the stranger that he  _ definitely _ had a bad feeling about.  And he was long gone.  “That’s not a good thing.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And more plot comes in. Thanks for reading!


	5. A Chicken Coop for Jemmy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone!
> 
> Sorry it's been over a week since I've updated anything. I got some brutally honest feedback on one of my stories and had a big sulk fest for a week, cause I'm a big baby. I had to work up the courage to post again, but I found some, and so here we go!

**Chapter Five: A Chicken Coop for Jemmy**

  
  


* * *

  
  


"Fish pot pie," Darcy sighed.  She looked at Jemmy, who was propped up in an ingenious little seat on the kitchen work table.  It was a thick, clean piece of burlap carefully fastened between two sturdy, but bendable little branches and attached to a rock solid piece of wood.  Jemmy lay on the taut piece of angled fabric and every once in awhile would wiggle and cause the whole contraption to safely bounce back and forth ever so slightly, giving him endless enjoyment as he watched Darcy work at dinner.

 

Steve had dropped them off at the cabin before saying he needed to run to town real quick to make sure no one had been asking around for Natalia.  He had told Darcy to stay put and not to venture out with Jemmy until he came back.  Darcy didn't like so much being told what to do most days, but he had asked so sweetly and politely, and seemed to genuinely be worried about her overall well being that she couldn't help but smile at him and wave him off to his tasks.

 

She realized now that she should have sent him with some money to buy the things she would need in order to run a proper household.  She had consulted her well worn housekeeping books and made a list and everything.  And she had the money, plenty of it, that she never used at all.  Her Pappy had been very successful in his fur trading business when all was said and done.  One of the Kalapuya had found a secret little safe behind a picture in her house after her mama had left her and it had been filled to the brim with coins and gold.  She never had much use for it before, it had seemed like cursed money.  She often wondered what her mama would have done if she had found the money in time, and if maybe she might have stayed wtih Darcy.  She didn't like thinking about that so much when it came down to it though, and she didn't like to spend it even more.  But she’d be more than willing to part with as much of it as Steve would need to buy things like sugar, and tea and some soap.  And maybe put in an order for two fancy mattresses to be shipped out from further East, those high falutin' ones filled with cotton and some springs.

 

She also wanted a new cast iron skillet and a set of proper mixing bowls.  She needed quite a few more things in order to really have the house working in proper order.  She'd wanted to run a house of her own for as long as she could remember.  It felt like it had been a long time coming at this point.  She looked down at her pies as she finished crimping up the corners of the crusts and pursed her lips thoughtfully.

 

She would have been able to make a much better meal than what she was currently looking down at if she had some real meat.  She'd caught a fish on the bank of the river that morning, and while it was fresh and fat and delicious, it didn't quite lend itself to pot pie so easy.  But she had to go through that last bit of lard, which she suspected had been in the cabin since the previous owner and she'd managed to trick some goat's milk into a creamy sauce and gathered the last bit of vegetables in the root cellar.

 

The pie crust promised to be flaky and golden and delicious. Filled to the brim with sturdy chunks of potato, perfect circles of carrot and even a few peas she'd managed to shuck in.  All of dinner promised to be good.  She even had a bit of dessert planned. 

 

"But FISH pot pie, Jemmy, _FISH_ ," Darcy sighed.  "Doesn't sound quite right.  Should be chicken."

 

Jemmy babbled at her and Darcy smiled, knowing that he wouldn't care one way or another.  She thought that once he was able to sit up for himself completely, she'd be able to start mixing just a little bit of porridge into his milk and feeding it to him with a spoon.  He made a little sound of annoyance as he tried to turn himself in the chair, but couldn't thanks to the straps Darcy had tied around him.  

 

"Hold on a second there, little man," Darcy told him sweetly before popping the two full pie tins into the oven to bake up.  She dusted off her hands on the apron she had sewed herself the second day of her stay with Steve and went to take Jemmy out of his little seat.  She took him away from the stove, to the bedroll mats she had set up for him and popped him on his little back.  

 

He made a happy noise and began lifting his head up, his little body moving ever so slightly in an inchworm motion as he went towards one of the little fabric bit toys that Darcy had filled with beans.  

 

"Look at you go!" Darcy clapped her hands.  "You're a right quick learner, you must get that from your mama.  You could get it from your papa too, but I never met him, so I'm just assuming you take after your pa in looks and your ma in brains.  Which is a good thing.  Ladies always have the best brains."

 

Jemmy babbled back at her and got two chubby hands on his favorite little toy, scrunching it in his fist and banging it on the ground with spastic violence.

 

The smell of rapidly baking pie began to waft through the cabin and Darcy sighed.

 

"Fish pie, Jemmy.  FISH," she repeated.  "If I could just go outside and take a peek at my traps, we might have been having at least a squirrel pie.  Maybe even rabbit if I hid them good enough.  But no.  Fish pie.  Damned that stupid big old river having all kinds of fish."

 

Jemmy agreed and Darcy found her mind wandering as she watched him play, helping him to roll over every once in awhile when he made a little impatient sound demanding it.  She felt along his gums just once and knew that those teeth were about to become annoying real soon for the little baby.  But she knew she had a bottle of whiskey tucked away in her bag, and while the root cellar didn't have much by way of food staples, it did have a few bottles of clear, odorless, but incredibly potent liquor.  

 

Tony would've liked to get his hands on that.

 

"When you start grexxing about those poor teeth, Auntie Darcy'll put a dab of the good stuff right on your gums and you'll be in dreamland with the angels," Darcy promised.  

 

Auntie Darcy.

 

Well, if Steve was serious, and he really wanted to take her on, then she might be called that by Jemmy when he started to find his little words.  The sound if it was sweet in her head, said with a little lisp around chubby cheeks.  She let her mind meander again and thought of Steve that very morning, standing at the wash basin.  He was tall and powerfully built and had such nice shoulders.  

 

She wondered what it would have been like to be between him and the wash basin, with him exactly like he was in his all together.  Would it be better for her to have been naked as a jaybird, too?  With her backside resting against the table, looking up at him as he caged her in with those big, powerful arms?  Or wouldn't it have been better to have her nightie on, to have those long, capable fingers pulling at the string keeping it together, unwrapping her like a present he really, really wanted?

 

She wondered what it would be like, if he was her proper husband.  How would it feel to have him pressing against her, his hands going to places she didn't dare to go to herself out of just plain embarrassment?

 

She'd lived with the Kalapuya.  She'd seen those heathens of Swedes that secretly worshiped a lot of Gods instead of one.  She'd lived in a whorehouse and called the three ladies that worked there her good friends.  She knew about the mechanics of it all.  Where the parts fit together.

 

But Steve's  _ part _ seemed awful sizeable to fit into  _ her _ part.  

 

She flushed at the thought of it.  Of his body between her parted legs.  Of his hands on her hips.  Of his hardness pressed into her and making them one.

 

"Get it together, Darcy-girl," Darcy whispered as shook herself out of it, her cheeks stained red.  She clapped her hands against her cheeks twice as hard as she dared before getting to her feet.  "You stay right there, Jemmy, Auntie Darcy is gonna go and pick some of those berries she found by the shade of the trees so's she can make a nice dessert for Uncle Steve."

 

She made a dash for the backdoor, intent on getting some cool air on her face to cool down a bit.  Her plans were thwarted, however, when she opened the door and saw the early afternoon sun glinting off of a familiar golden head.  And golden skin glowing and muscles rippling and a shirtless, manly chest covered with a thin sheen of sweat.

 

Steve was about twenty feet out from the backdoor of the cabin, standing on top of a wooden structure about six feet high that looked like it was about to fall apart after being ripped out of the ground and dragged a few miles.  

"What in the fool hell are you doing up there?" Darcy demanded.

 

Steve startled from his work on the roof of the scavenged chicken coop he had pulled off of the property that had been abandoned two miles down the river from them.  He had wanted it to be a surprise, to fix it up proper before presenting it to his hopefully, very likely future bride.  But that went all to hell as Darcy looked up at him in wonderment and confusion.

 

And then he slid.

 

"Damn it all to hell!" Steve yelped out as he lost his balance completely and wound up on his bottom, sliding down about two feet of slanted chicken coop roof to land face first in the gravel and dirt.

 

"Oh no!  Oh Steve!  Oh fucking hell!" Darcy swore as loudly as she pleased as she rushed to him, falling to her knees in the dirt next to him and reaching out a tender hand to the side of his face.  "Steve, darlin', Steve, are you alright?"

 

"Darling?  I like it...that's nice," Steve turned his face in the gravel to get a good look at her.  She attempted to turn him, but he minutely shook his head.  "Can't be on my backside right now, sweet girl. It's entertaining callers."

 

Darcy looked down and winced, because Steve's pants were torn all to hell and back again by a bunch of big, nasty splinters from the roof of the chicken coop.  She put her hand down on the side of his face and brushed the gravel off of his skin, thankful that his fall hadn't managed to mar his pretty face.  She took a deep breath, squared her shoulders and nodded.

 

"C'mon, get up, let's get you cleaned up."

 

Steve tried to say no, he tried to say he could do it himself, even though there wasn't a chance in hell he'd be able to pull splinters out of his backside alone.  He thought about asking Darcy to run into town to grab the preacher, or a miner or hell, even Anthony Stark, but it wouldn't be right to have her out by herself, what with bad people after Natalia.  

 

But he'd rather let the splinters grow new trees inside of his ass than have Darcy picking bits of wood out of it without them being properly married first.

 

"Got you a chicken coop," Steve panted as she helped him to lean on his elbows on the dining table.  "Was fixing it up."

 

"I saw that," Darcy nodded as she surveyed Steve's rear end and wondered what the best way to go about doing this whole thing was.  She nodded and ran off real quick to the root cellar and came back up with a bottle of the clear, potent liquor.  Shaking hands poured a glass full and she came back to Steve and held it up to his lips.

 

"Will you marry me?" Steve wondered hopefully.  

 

"Take a big gulp of this," Darcy ordered.

 

"And then will you marry me?" Steve managed a smile.

  
  


"You did get the chicken coop," Darcy said absentmindedly as she went and fetched a newly laundered rag.  "Take a few drinks of this, Steve, it'll make it easier."

 

"Even found a chicken.  An old nasty rooster," Steve said hopefully.  The weathered old bird had been hanging about the coop, looking almost hopefully up at Steve when he began wrestling with old wood and nails.  The rooster had followed him back and forth every step as Steve loaded the old chicken coop into the little cart that had been used to transport Mary the Goat and all of Darcy's earthly possessions.  

 

Steve didn't quite know what the point of the old rooster would be, aside from maybe a tough and unappetizing bit of meat, but he couldn't very well leave him there alone with his only shelter stolen away.  So he got the docile bird under his arm and drove the horse back as slow as he could, lest the rickety old contraption that he intended to make a freshly sanded and painted chicken coop fall off the wagon completely.  

 

"Named him Howard," Steve let Darcy put the glass of Natalia's ridiculously potent alcohol to his lips.  He winced as the first big swallow went down with a burn to his throat.  Steve was pretty good at drinking copious amounts of whiskey with Bucky and not feeling a bit of disorientation.  But Natalia's precious magical elixir always knocked him flat on his ass.  And right quick, too.

  
  


"Why Howard?"

 

"Knew a Howard once.  He crowed like a rooster and liked to be the only cock in a henhouse," Steve took another big swallow and made an exasperated expression at his own words.   "Aw hell, Darcy, please marry me, cause I'm gonna get down right inappropriate soon, and I'd like to have your promise that you won't leave after you've seen my pale, white, bare ass.  Bucky's told me it's not exactly appealing."

 

Darcy's eyes widened at Steve's words and she fought a smile.  She placed the cup full of alcohol on the table by Steve's arms and moved a few steps to be behind him.  Her sleeves were rolled up and she took a deep breath, preparing herself for at least a half hour of very earnest work.

 

Steve's hands quickly went to the waistband of his pants and gripped them tight just as Darcy went to assess them.  He made a frustrated noise and shook his head adamantly.

 

"Marry me, please?" his words were losing all their aspects of shyness and timidity.  Instead, it was starting to sound less like a gentle question and more like a desperate request.  

 

"Steve, let me get those splinters outta your rear!" Darcy laughed.

 

"Not until you say you're gonna marry me," Steve said stubbornly.  "I'm downright desperate to make you my wife, sweet girl."

 

"You're just sayin' that cause I'm the only girl in a hundred miles who ain't already married, a child, or a whore," Darcy huffed out in annoyance as she tried to work at the pants, which Steve was now clutching at his hips.  

 

His arms were preoccupied with defending his ruined pants, leaving his upper body unsupported, his face smashed against the table, his words coming out squished and distorted.  

 

"That's not true, that ain't even close to being true, I coulda gotten married back East and had another set of hands coming out with us," Steve insisted.  "One girl even suggested it, like it was something to add to a checklist for survival."

 

"What girl?" Darcy felt a slip of green jealousy coming to the corners of her vision and she tried to shake it off as she went to reach for the little knife she used to cut up the small carrots an hour ago.  

 

"Doesn't matter, because there was no other girl in the entire world for me.  You were meant for me and I was meant for you," Steve said quickly.  "S'why the good Lord brought me out here, why Natalia and Bucky ran into their trouble.  I was meant to meet you, 'cause you're perfect and smart and clever and pretty and I want you to be my wife and you to mother our children and you to be the one.  The one forever."

 

"Oh."

 

Darcy's eyes were wide as saucers and Steve squirmed against the table.  The alcohol certainly did a good job of loosening his tongue, that was for sure.  He actually went for another drink of the potent stuff, but without his hands, which were still clinging tightly to the waist of his pants.  Instead he inched his lips to the cup, fixing to get the mouth of it between his lips and just pour some on his overheated face at that point.

 

"If you survive me yanking these nasty sons of bitches out of your ass, and you still think I'm smart and pretty and clever and not Satan himself in the body of a girl, then---then  **_yes_ ** .  I'll marry you just as soon as you please," Darcy blurted out.

 

Steve's hands came off his waistband and pushed against the table, eager to spin around and kiss her proper, but Darcy was quick and dug an elbow into his back before taking the knife to his pants and cutting the ass of them and his drawers to form a flap.  She threw the knife on the table and bit into her bottom lip before going for the first big splinter caught on the fabric.  She grasped it carefully, ignoring Steve's indignant yelp and pulled quickly and decisively.

 

"God dammit it all to hell and back!"  

 

Darcy wrinkled her nose and bit into her bottom lip harder as she took the rag, splashed it with the spirits and wiped it on the little wound on Steve’s rear.  It was firm under her fingers and heated in such a way that Darcy would know he was blushing all over his body even if she were blind as a stone.  She waited for a few seconds before grabbing another big splinter and pulling.

 

"Seven damned devils and their damned horns!"

 

Each pluck came another inventive curse until finally he was just cursing in Gaelic, a lovely, lyrical sound, but certainly curse words, still.

 

Jemmy was giggling from his place on his little mat, thinking the loud yelled curses were like a fun song that his Papa and Steve might of sung before.  Darcy worked as quickly as she could and soon enough, the flesh on Steve’s rear end was clear of all the splinters, and only looking a little worse for the wear on a little two inch by two inch square of skin.  She grabbed another clean rag and folded it up, placing it against him and holding it there.  

 

“I’m sorry---I’m sorry, s’not right to talk like that in front of a lady,” Steve apologized, his face still against the table.

 

Darcy’s one hand stayed on his backside while the other stroked his back up and down.  He gave a big heaving breath under the ministrations and felt soothed despite the predicament they had found themselves in.  

 

“I’m not exactly a lady, Steve.  Hell, I swore plenty too.”

 

He pushed up off the table to stand and turned very slowly so that Darcy’s one hand stayed holding the bandage to his wounds on his rear.  It was tight confines since her arms weren’t very long at all, and they found themselves prettily pressed together. His right arm wrapped around her and his left hand went to her chin, lifting her face up to meet his.  They smiled a little shyly at one another, as if Darcy hadn’t---and still didn’t have her hand on his bare ass.  

 

“Will you still marry me?” he whispered.

 

Darcy’s blue eyes searched his, looking for the joke, or the hint of dishonesty, but there wasn’t a trace of it.  HIs eyes were bright and hopeful and full of a merry sparkle.  She hadn’t known Steven Grant Rogers for very long, but she knew he was honest and wouldn’t lie.  He wanted to marry her still.

 

“Yes,” she said softly.  “You  _ did _ get me a chicken coop.”

 

“I did, indeed,” Steve nodded.  He bent at the knee a little and his sore bottom hit the table top, and Darcy’s hand pressed as he essentially sat on it.  He hissed in pain, although it wasn’t quite so bad as he thought it to be.

 

“I’m sorry, take another sip of---”

 

Steve shook his head and both hands went to her face, holding her in place gently.  His cheeks turned a little pinker and his smile was still shy, but at the same time a little emboldened by the alcohol and Darcy’s positive answer to his question.

 

“A kiss would make it better,” he said slyly.

 

Darcy’s face was instantly shocked and horrified.   She pulled her hand away from his buttocks and took a defensive stance, both hands balled up in fists and pushed onto her hips.  Steve was delighted and he found himself licking his lips.   She looked as angry as wet cat, and that did certain things for him.  He liked a bossy lady, but he really liked to see  _ this _ angry, bossy woman, his future bride, looking ready to tear him a new one.

 

Bucky had always called him an odd sort of duck in regards to his personal preferences, but even the oddest of ducks might find the thing that made them happiest.

 

“Married or not, I’m not kissing your ass, darlin’ so just get that right outta your----”

 

Her words were cut off because her lips became very rapidly occupied.  Steve had leaned down and kissed her very sweetly.  The soft touch of his lips against hers was innocent and just barely a press, but Darcy found that all her anger and all sudden disgust disappeared into thin air when he pulled away far too quickly.  Her hands fell from her hips and she found that her fingers landed on the hard and warm flesh of his stomach.  

 

“Oh,” she whispered.

 

It had been her first kiss ever, and not for lack of trying on one of Janie’s new Swedish brother-in-law’s parts, the one with the strange golden facial hair had tried his darndest to steal a kiss from her lips during the wedding reception for Janie and her Thor.  But she had managed to trick him into running off a cliff pretty well, and while he wasn’t dead, he would always walk with a limp, and hopefully think twice on trying to grab a young lady and smash his lips against hers.  She was real happy that she’d managed to keep a hold on her kisses because what Steve had just given her had given her the shivers from the top of her head to the tips of her toes.  

 

“I’m sorry, I just---I should have warned you,” Steve admitted.  “But--”

 

It was Steve’s turn to be cut off, because Darcy pressed her hands firmly against his stomach  and went in for another kiss, this one landing a little awkwardly and not quite full on his lips, but he didn’t seem to mind one bit, moving his head to the side to slot his lips against hers.  And he really hadn’t known kissing could be like this.  He’d caught Bucky and Natalia kissing more times than he could count and they seemed to enjoy it an awful lot.  But the two times he had been kissed back in New York had felt uncomfortable and pinched and not at all like this.

 

He found that Darcy fairly trembled when he somehow managed to get that pouty bottom lip of hers in between his and he sat harder on the bench, ignoring the slight twinge of pain in order to pull her closer.  Darcy was a plump little thing, and he had never felt something so nice as having her curvy body pressing into his.  One kiss turned into two and two turned into three and pretty soon Steve lost track and losing count gave him the best feeling in the pit of his stomach.

 

She was going to be his bride and he was going to get to kiss her all the time, whenever she pleased, and the idea of that thrilled him to no end.  His arms tightened around her and she melted against him, her hands sliding up from his stomach to rest on his chest.  He had to go and find the preacher, and fast, because she was inspiring all sorts of sinful feelings inside of himself.  She was so soft against him, so good with her sweet, heated kisses.  She tasted like the sweetest parts of that morning’s breakfast, just the hint of molasses on her lips.

 

And if his mother had not raised him so well, and if Jemmy hadn’t of been cooing a few feet away, and if she would let him, he’d get down on his knees and beg her to let him have her completely right then and there.  He had never wanted to be with someone so badly.

 

“Well, well, well, looks like I got here just in time.”  

  
Darcy’s hands pushed against Steve with surprising force and he pressed even harder into the table, letting out a hiss of pain and standing immediately.  He could feel the air in the room hitting his bare bottom and looked over at Darcy, disheveled, red in the face and panting slightly.  She had a look of pinched acknowledgement, like she knew who had interrupted them and was slightly annoyed by his presence.  

 

He looked to the doorway, and saw a man dressed mostly normal from the waist down.  The black pants were well made, the shoes polished carefully, but the shirt was a bright, vivid purple.  And the vest seemed to be a sort of flowery patterned material in gray and white.   The man’s face was a little on the haggard side, like he’d seen one too many days of hard labor out in the sun.  His nose was a little mashed in, like he’d been on the wrong side of a bar brawl on one too many occasions.  And he had steely, dark blue eyes, looking scoldingly at the pair of them.

 

“Natalia warned me you’d be trouble, Rogers,” the man shook his head.  “But to let little Lewis try to steal your virtue…”

 

“Go jump off a cliff, Barton!” Darcy sassed back.

 

“Darcy,” Steve whispered softly.  If this was Barton, that meant he was the preacher.  The preacher that’d marry them quick as could be.  Right that second if Steve had his way.  “That’s no way to speak to a man of God.”

 

“Plllllfffff,” Darcy stuck her tongue between her lips that Steve had been wickedly indulging in moments before.  

 

“Now, now girlie, you’re the cook, not one of the ladies upstairs,” Clint reminded her.  “Don’t let the man get the goods without milking the goat first...wait a minute, I don’t think I got that right.”

 

“Get on outta here!” Darcy demanded hotly, taking a step towards the door to push Clint out.  “I’ll tell your blessed wife what you spent your money on at the saloon last month!”

 

“Aww, Darcy, no,” Clint shook his head.  “I can’t marry ya, if I’m dead as a doornail.”

 

“Wasting silver on a fifty gallon drum full of squash and vinegar!” Darcy pointed a finger at him.  “Disgusting!”

  
“Darcy!” Steve tried not to laugh as he went to hold her back, turning his back to the preacher and putting his hands on Darcy’s shoulders.  

 

Clint let out a wolf whistle and Steve wrinkled his nose in frustration.  He realized how badly this looked.  He was shirtless.  His pants were missing a bottom completely.  And he had just been caught kissing the daylights out of a respectable woman.  He’d been sharing a bed with her too, for days.  His skin turned as red as it could when he realized just how badly he’d damaged Darcy’s reputation in three short days.

 

Clint shook his head and had a sly grin on his face, unlike any other preacher that Steve had ever come across.

 

“Alright, let me go get my bible outta the saddle bags, we gotta get this done and get it done right quick.”

 

“Get what done?” Darcy demanded.

 

“Get on up here and be a witness to a wedding!” Clint called out the door.  “And bring the bible!”

 

“What’s going on, Preacher Barton?” Steve asked as politely as he could.

 

“I had a visitor today, said you’s two was livin’ in sin,” Clint shrugged, and then vaguely gestured to Steve’s entire appearance.  “Said he was keen to come out here and put a stop to it in the Good Lord’s name.  Now, Natalia done told me that some unfriendly faces might pop up to chase her down when she rescued me from that pack of wolves, so seeing as I owe her, we might get you two married up right here, right now, then you pass that sweet baby boy over there off as your own ‘til his mama and papa return.”

 

“Who is it?” Steve asked.  Natalia hadn’t told him about saving a preacher from a pack of wolves.  But then again she’d not told him about saving Darcy from a man full of bad intentions (something Steve would be sure to thank her profusely for), and she’d not told him about anyone chasing her from the East.  Natalia was just full of secrets, apparently.

 

“Comes from the same place as Natalia, I’d assume,” Clint shrugged.  “Calls himself Niko, according to the letter that my clever wife picked from his pocket when she was handing him a mug of coffee.  Either way, bad news, and I’m thinking he’ll want that there baby if he finds out it’s Natalia’s.”

 

Two pairs of rushing footsteps came towards the door, and Clint made a whistling sound.

 

“Lila, cover your eyes and don’t look at the fool man who is not decent for innocent eyes,” Clint warned.  A young boy and a girl came in, the girl holding her hands over her eyes, but peeking on through anyhow, making a meeping sound and flushing red.  The boy handed over his father’s well worn bible.  “Thank you kindly, Cooper.”

 

Clint turned back to Darcy and Steve and smiled.  “So...how’s about we get you two kids hitched up all proper like?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks very much for reading!


	6. A Well-cared for Caretaker for Jemy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I rated this mature just in case I felt like writing...things. That were---mature? So I did. And I'm wrinkling my nose at posting this, and I'm kind of proud but I hope you like it and yeah, just. wrinkly nose. I hope you like this chapter.

**Chapter Six: A Well-cared for Caretaker for Jemmy**

* * *

 

 

“James…”

 

Bucky blinked his eyes open, feeling well rested and only a little bit disoriented. He was fine with a little disorientation.  He wasn’t sure, but he felt fairly certain that he’d woken up disoriented most days of his life, being a heavy sleeper and maybe possibly ailing from a night of drinking more than he ought to every once in awhile.  But the warm, soft voice saying his name lulled him out of slumber, and after his name came gentle, soft words in a language Bucky didn’t quite understand.  They were pretty words anyway.  And it inspired a nice warm feeling inside of him.

 

_ Familiarity _ . 

 

He wanted to ask what the words meant, but then he felt gentle fingers running over his brow and it felt so nice that he didn’t want to make the owner of the fingers stop in their ministrations one bit so he made a happy, low humming noise low in his throat.

 

“My James,” the whisper sounded sad, with worry there too.  “Come back to me.”

 

“I’d do anything to keep your hands on me,” Bucky whispered back.  

 

“Always the same, even like this,” the voice answered back and suddenly there were lips on Bucky’s own, the fingers that had been combing through his hair now on the sides of his face, gently moving up and down.  

 

“My Red Lady?” Bucky mumbled against her lips.

 

“James?” Natalia pulled away and looked down at him in earnest anticipation.  

 

“What?” Bucky blinked, whatever clarity had appeared had immediately vanished.  He grinned up at the very beautiful woman who had kissed him, who was staring down at him in confusion, like he was some kind of puzzle  “You’re really pretty.  Prettiest damned lady I ever saw.”

 

“You’ve told me that before,” she rolled her eyes.  

 

“Remind me,” Bucky goaded confidently.

 

Blow to the head or not, Natalia knew her husband was staring up at her with all of his abilities in the wicked ways she’d come to enjoy so well in the last year.  She grinned down at him and said in Russian, what she had said to him the moment she had laid eyes on him,

 

“I’m Natalia.  And you will be my beautiful, clever, strong man forever.”

 

“Give us a kiss again,” Bucky smirked up at her.

 

“Your eagerness to take affection from a women you just met does not inspire a lot of confidence in my abilities as a wife,” Natalia sighed, but had a wicked light in her eyes as she suddenly lifted her skirts and swung her leg over Bucky’s prone body, settling herself to sit right on top of his abdomen.  She felt a warmth bloom in her heart when his hands rested naturally on the swell of her hips, familiar and comfortable.

 

“Maybe it’s only ‘cause it’s you,” Bucky wagered with a wisdom that spoke well of his charming ways.  He let out a low moan when Natalia speared her fingers into his hair and pulled just the way he liked it.  He made a move to flip them over and she shook her head at him even as the pain twinged through his ankle.

 

“Let me take care of you,” Natalia urged in such a way that any man would be fool to say no.  she shifted against him as she bent to kiss him again, as voraciously as she dared.  

 

“We haven’t done this in a while?” Bucky questioned after pulling away suddenly.  He looked into the most beautiful green eyes he’d ever seen.  He never could tell some days though, if there wasn’t a hint of blue there. He marveled over that little bit of information, he could remember days traveling on a dusty road, just staring into her eyes, trying to figure out the color of them.   “It feels like it’s been a while.  I feel...I feel real eager.”

 

“I just had a baby, it’s been over three months,” Natalia offered.  

 

“I have a baby?” Bucky blinked up at her in amazement.  He shook his head, “I have---I have a son…”

 

Natalia’s smile grew a little bigger and she nodded, “This is working.  We’re going to get all of your memory back right now.”

 

The way she moved on top of him and the heated look in her eyes told him what the miracle cure would be and he chuckled before shifting underneath her and groaning, “I’m real eager…”

 

“You always are,” Natalia laughed, and the sound  of it was scratchy and lyrical and beautiful.  She shimmied her body back and Bucky shivered beneath her when the smooth skin of her bare bottom pressed against the bottom of his abdomen. 

 

“Where’d my pants go?” Bucky’s eyes widened in delighted surprise.  

 

“Does it matter?” Natalia gave him an unimpressed look.

 

“Not one bit, just curious, is all,” Bucky grinned.  His hand reached up and went to the back of her neck, bringing her back down for a desperate kiss.  When he pulled away, he formed the words with their lips still pressed together.  “Feels familiar.”

 

“We had our fun when we could,” she answered him with a funny little quirk to her lips.  One of her hands reached back and brushed against his manhood,  and the quirk to her lips turned into a grin when she felt how hot, hard and ready for her he was, as always.  Hitting his head and forgetting his own name would never change how much her husband always wanted her.  “We have your brother Steven to worry about catching us all the time.”

 

“Exciting lives we lead,” Bucky kissed her again as she stroked him with just the right amount of friction that had him pushing his hips up to meet her hand.  He felt a twist in her wrist and his eyes rolled into the back of his head.  “Natalia.”

 

“Yes,” Natalia answered with a full on wicked grin on her face.  She let out a moan when Bucky’s hand drifted beneath her skirts, his fingers seeking out the warm wetness at the apex of her thighs.  He stroked her skin, his body remembering things that his mind could not and she was shaking and shivering above him, her hand faltering in its rhythm against against his stiff length.  She let out a lovely bunch of foreign words that were most certainly curses and he felt her thighs squeezing against his body with strength that made him want to hoist her up his body so that he could get his mouth where his fingers currently were.  

 

His memories came back in bubbles, small and shiny and bursting against his skin pleasantly as he remembered his beautiful, clever, tough as nails wife, and his brother in everything but blood, Steven, and even his new baby boy, so strong and good and adorable.  He could remember being as quiet as possible as Steve slept on the other side of the fire, and Natalia being heavy with child and yet he still had to have her, had to have a taste of her and that sense memory hit the hardest at that moment, and he wanted it so badly.

 

But his Red Lady had other ideas and she pushed his hands away from their earnest endeavors and moved her body until he was pressing against a warmth so welcome and needed.  Bucky’s head fell back and he watched Natalia’s face as she sank down on him.  He loved his wild and free wife.  He’d been warned by men on the night before his wedding that he’d take his comfort where he could, because a wife just endured what was done to her.

 

Not his Natalia.  He found his breath catching as he remembered everything in that moment where he was snuggled deep inside of her.  This was Natalia, she’d won him in a poker game, and he had fallen in love with her the moment he had watched her punch another man square in the jaw four hours after he had said  _ I do _ .  She had given birth to his beautiful, smart and strong son.  He loved her so much.

 

“Natalia, Natalia,” he whispered.  

 

“Yes, my James,” Natalia moaned at the familiar feeling of fullness.  It had been a long four months.  Bucky had refused to touch her during her last month of pregnancy in fear that something bad would happen to the baby.  And she hadn’t wanted him anywhere near her after the birth of the baby until three days ago, when she had left the baby with Steve and taken her husband into the woods under the guise of checking the traps.

 

And then Bucky had gotten hurt and for a split second she had worried that she’d never see that beautiful blue gaze staring up at her as they were so fully together as husband and wife.  She found her hips moving faster over him and despite the sharp little pains from his injury, Bucky’s hips were meeting hers, moving in concert with her as a low steady moaning began in the back of Bucky’s throat.

 

“My Red, my Red,” he managed to gasp out.  It had been so long for the both of them, who had become so accustomed to being together this way so often on their journey West, that the absence of this physical comfort for months was overwhelming.  He felt that familiar feeling of Natalia’s lovely heat tightening and quivering around him as the rhythm of her hips faltered. 

 

“Don’t let go yet,” Natalia warned, her voice threaded with steel for one moment before she let out a cry when she melted against him, taking just one moment to revel before pulling off of him and stroking him in her hands until he let go as well, spilling his seed over her hands and onto his skin.  She smiled down at him and took in a long, shuddering, pleasured breath.  “Our Jemmy is enough for now.”

 

“Yes, Red, he certainly is,” Bucky whispered. He gave her a grin and nodded,  “Let’s go home and see him and Steve, yeah?”

 

* * *

 

 

“Steven Middle-Name-Unknown Rogers…”

  
  


“It’s Grant,” Steve said quickly.

 

“Grant Middle-Name-Unknown Rogers…”

 

“No, my middle name is Grant,” Steve cut in, feeling a little annoyed with the Preacher and then immediately feeling terribly guilty for feeling annoyed with him. His mother had raised him better than to disrespect a man of the cloth, no matter how much that man didn’t resemble a man of the cloth.

 

This was all happening very fast, which was what Steve had wanted, but he at least wanted to put on a pair of pants that didn’t let the wind whip against the bare skin of his buttocks.  And a shirt might be nice.  And a ring would be ideal.  But he had Darcy’s hands in his, so he guessed when all was said and done, that was the only thing that really mattered.  Then he heard Preacher Barton’s daughter Lila make a giggling sound while she shielded her eyes poorly and he sighed.

 

“Might I please go and get dressed?” Steve wondered.  “And grab the rings?”

 

“You have rings?” Darcy’s eyes widened.  She hadn’t thought she’d be getting a ring.

 

“They were my parents’ rings,” Steve explained.  He felt a cool breeze hit his bottom and said, “And pants, please…”

 

“Oh fine, but I’m on a schedule, Tony Stark’s got a special drink tonight and I’m fixing to get me and the Missus some of that, so’s you have five minutes,” Preacher Barton shooed Steve away while walking to the oven.  He opened it up and peaked at it, “Those chicken pot pies, Darcy Lewis?”

 

“Fish pot pies,” Darcy shook her head as she suddenly ran from the room back to where Steve had gone.  

 

“What the hell is fish pot pie?” Preacher Barton scowled.  He sniffed again and shrugged, “Smells mighty fine, though.”

 

Darcy ignored him and kept following Steve, rushing to the room where his bed used to be, her mouth went open because he stood there in his all together, holding a pair of pants in one hand and small little leather pouch in the other, his face wild as he tried to do about three different things at once.   Darcy’s eyes managed to dart up and down his naked body twice before he finally caught on to just how naked he was and he pulled up the drawers and pants all at once.  

  
  


“Steven,” Darcy managed to whisper.  Then she lost her words and could only make little squeaking sounds.  

 

“Yes, sweet girl?” Steve smiled at her dreamily as he reached for his best shirt and popped it over his head.  

 

“I have a dress,” Darcy looked down at her trousers and man’s shirt.  “It’s not white...it’s a pretty blue thing, but I have one, and---”

 

“We only have five minutes,” Steve reminded her.  “And I think you’d look beautiful in a flour sack.”

 

“Well--alright, but are you sure?” Darcy whispered.

 

“Am I sure you’d look pretty in a flour sack?  I mean, yes, but there’s only one way to know for sure, and you’ll have to make a lot of bread to empty the flour sack---”

 

“Are you sure you want to marry me?” Darcy blurted.  

 

“Of course,” Steve shook his head in disbelief.  He saw something in her face, something that looked a little like fear and anxiousness.  He thought about what her life had been like up to that point.  The loneliness of being left behind or pushed away time and time again made his heart ache for her and he took two large steps across the room and pulled her up into his arms and kissed her very hard and insistently, to the point of it feeling a little bruising and Darcy fairly melted.  When he pulled away he looked down into big blue eyes and whispered, “I want to be your husband.  I want to provide for you, and I want to know everything about you and know every inch of you. I want to fall asleep aside of you every night for the rest of my life.”

 

“Oh...that’s what I want too,” Darcy nodded, her face lighting up with a smile.  “I want all of those things, and---and I want to make a family with you----”

 

“Yes,  _ yes _ , that too,” Steve grinned down at her.  “Enough children to take over the whole damned world, Darcy.  All as smart and clever and good as you.”

 

“And you,” Darcy thought her face would split with how much she was smiling.  

 

“You know,” Clint said from the doorway, where he stood with his kids, three forks in each of their grasp and one hot pie tin held between them , now only half full, held gingerly with a kitchen towel.  “You practically said the vows.  With the power vested in me by the Good Lord above, you could exchange rings and kiss your bride…”

 

“I’d like the real words, please, Barton?” Darcy was so happy that she couldn’t even find the will to sass the Preacher.  She pulled away from Steve and reached for a little piece of crisp white fabric. “And I’m fixin’ to change into a dress, go and eat that pie and Steve, take this little thing I made for Jemmy and dress him and I’ll be right in.”

 

She was another four minutes, but eventually, Steve, his arms full of a squirmy, happy Jemmy finally heard her sensible boots making noise against the wooden slats of the floor of the cabin.  She walked into the room and had a grin as big and bright as the sun on her face.  She was dressed prettily in a simple blue dress, the color deep enough to compliment her lovely pale skin.  She’d managed to trick wild brown curls into some kind of a proper updo, but to Steve’s delight some of them tumbled down her back anyway, looking like his fingers ought to reach out and touch them.  

 

She cut a fine figure, with her lovely bosom straining against the fabric of the dress, her waist nipping in with the help of her corset, and what he knew to be plump, soft hips flaring out under the skirt.  

 

Steve held Jemmy to him, holding him around his waist and at his bottom.  The little man had been hastily changed into a new, white gown and he grinned toothlessly at Darcy and babbled happily.  Darcy walked up to them and stroked Jemmy’s cheek before reaching out and placing her hand on top of Steve’s.  He managed to juggle the baby enough so that his fingers grasped on hers and they stood there, staring at each other in dreamy wonder, Jemmy happy and content for the time being.

 

“Alright, alright, let’s move it along, Missus Barton doesn’t like her outings to Stark’s saloon to be much delayed,” Clint smiled at the two young lovers who only had eyes for each other.  They were as fine a match as any he’d seen.  

 

Natalia had been right again, which Clint was getting used to.  She’d told him offhandedly that she found Steve a wife in Stark’s little lady cook, and just two weeks later, he was presiding over their wedding.  He wondered errantly if Natalia wouldn’t mind sitting at a game of cards with him to tell him when to raise the stakes.

 

“Steven Grant Rogers,  will you have this woman to be your wedded wife, to live together in the holy estate of matrimony as God ordained it? Will you nourish and cherish her as Christ loved His body the Church, giving Himself up for her? Will you love, honor, and keep her in sickness and in health, and forsaking all others remain united to her alone, as long as you both shall live?”

 

“I will.  I  _ will _ , forever,” Steve promised, his eyes only set on Darcy.  He remembered what Bucky had looked like on his own wedding day.  Beguiled and astounded and enticed.  And  _ happy _ .  Steve now knew how he felt.  Much the same as he felt right then.

 

“Course you do,” Clint smiled.  He looked to Darcy and arched a skeptical eyebrow before launching into the vows, “Darcy Anne Lewis---”

 

“How’d you know my middle name?” Darcy snapped her attention to Clint, suddenly very suspicious.

 

“Lucky guess,” Clint waved her off and she didn’t bother to try and stare him down.  Instead she turned that gaze back to Steve and it simply melted right back to amazed and awestruck and adoring.   “Darcy Anne Lewis, will you have this man to be your wedded husband, to live together in the holy estate of matrimony as God ordained it? Will you submit to him as the Church submits to Christ? Will you love, honor, obey and keep him in sickness and in health, and forsaking all others remain united to him alone, as long as you both shall live?”

 

“Hold on, submit and obey?” Darcy furrowed her brow.

 

“You never need to obey or submit, sweet girl,” Steve promised quickly.  “I don’t like that so much.”

 

“Oh, then, yes, of course I will,” Darcy nodded.

 

“Well, then,” Clint fought back a chuckle.  “I now pronounce you man and wife.  You may kiss your bride.”

 

Steve moved Jemmy to his shoulder and held him there with his right hand on his back.  His left hand went for Darcy’s waist and brought her close as she popped up on the tops of her toes so that they could kiss.  It was a lovely, gentle thing, and might have lasted a little longer and gotten more heated if the Barton children hadn’t started to make obnoxious cooing noises at them.

 

“Well then---enjoy the wedding night and I’ll let everyone in town know that you’re properly married, and I’ll have Cooper bring your chickens up in the next few days,” Clint nodded.  “By the by, fish pot pie?  Delicious!”

 

“Wait---wait, I need to go to town, quick, can you let me follow?” Steve wondered.   “And keep an eye out, just in case I fall off my horse?  On account of---splinters?”

 

“What?  Shouldn’t you be wanting to---well---you know, get on with what you were doing when I got here?” Clint wondered.  “It’s expected now that you’re hitched.”

 

“I got an errand, real quick,” Steve shrugged with a red face that said he was hiding something different.  

 

“Actually, that sounds like a mighty fine idea,” Darcy nodded, a little overly eager suddenly at the idea of Steve leaving the house.  She desperately wanted a bath, having just finished with her time of the month and wanting to be perfectly clean for---for what they would probably, hopefully be doing later.  “I have a list of things we need, and you can stop at Happy’s General Store and place an order for me.  While I get….some things ready here.”

 

“Alright,” Steve smiled down at her before bending at the knee and giving her another kiss.  “Mrs. Rogers.”

 

“Oh!” Darcy’s eyes went wide.  She’d forgotten about that part of it.  

 

“I’ll be right back,” Steve promised.

 

Clint looked at Darcy hopefully and said, “Can we take the fish pie for the road?”

 

* * *

 

 

“This seems like a longer ride home than the ride to get here,” Bucky complained.

 

Sam took a deep breath and counted to twenty in his head.  Then he repeated the process in French.  Then he repeated the process in the language of the Kalapuya.  Then he repeated it one last time in English again.  He’d been given the thankless task of transporting Bucky and Natalia back towards their homestead.  

 

Natalia had been pleased that Steve had found Darcy, but Bucky had been panicked that Steve was about to mess up his chances at landing a wife by living with her before they were properly wed.  Although Bucky hadn’t exactly endeared himself to Sam in the six hours they’d known each other, Sam had to admit that he liked that Bucky was concerned about Darcy’s well-being, seeing as the man had never quite met her.  

 

Sam and Bucky may not be the best of friends, but they agreed that they should return Natalia and Bucky home as quickly as possible.

 

“James,” Natalia gave him a long suffering look.

 

“If there were interesting conversation to be had,” Bucky shrugged, before angling his head Sam’s way. “I mean, how does a free man like him find himself being taken as a war bride by the Natives?”

 

“I’m not a war bride!” Sam huffed.  He knew that Darcy and Bucky had never met, and he wondered how Bucky knew to call him that.  

 

They rode in silence for a bit.  They were a good day’s hard ride away from the Barnes-Rogers homestead, but it would take longer due to the fact that Bucky couldn’t quite ride a horse or walk at that moment, and the medicine man had recommended a gentle ride to avoid aggravating the head injury that had stolen his memories before.  So they were traveling via a mule pulled cart, and would be expected to stop overnight.  

 

Sam had complained at length how an eight hour trip had been pushed into a two day trip.  His complaints had been heard by Bucky, and Bucky in turn, had decided to torture the man as much as he pleased in return for his troubles.  Natalia didn’t approve, but she decided to just be thankful her ornery, headstrong husband was back rather than stop his ornery and headstrong behavior.

 

“Well, technically the natives and the pioneers are at a war, over the land and the resources,” Bucky shrugged.  “So this fine man, Sammy is technically a war bride.”

 

“I’m ignoring you now,” Sam ground out.  “And don’t call me Sammy.  Damn my wife telling you her damned pet names.”

 

“It’s okay, Sammy,” Bucky smirked.  “No shame in being a war bride.”

 

“You were won in a card game,” Natalia reminded him.

 

“He was what now?” Sam demanded.  

 

“He is terrible at bluffing,” Natalia shrugged.

 

Sam’s laughter was louder than it should have been, and he must have squeezed his eyes shut in his mirth because the cart hit a sizeable clump of rocks and jostled them severely.  Bucky hissed in pain and turned to Natalia with some confusion in his eyes.

  
“Who are you?” he blinked at her.  

 

“Really?” Sam turned in his seat to look at him in disbelief.

 

“Who the hell are you?” Bucky glared at the man.

 

“Turn away, Samuel,” Natalia advised before fairly pouncing on her husband for a kiss.  

 

“This is just the most ridiculous cure for a head ailment I ever did see, and I can’t really---” 

 

Bucky’s pleasured moan broke into Sam’s diatribe and Sam let out a streak of cursing that consisted of English, French and Kalapuyan words.  

 

“You can’t be serious, this ole boy loses his memories and he gets sweet lovin’ from a pretty woman,” Sam muttered.  

 

“She’s my wife,” Bucky answered back.  A little slap echoed in the afternoon sun and Bucky hissed out in annoyance.  “Natalia, watch my head, you could knock my memories back out.”

 

“You lied earlier!” Natalia accused.

 

“You said I was a horrible bluffer, I had to prove you wrong,” Bucky shrugged, as if that were answer enough.  “Give us another kiss, Red.”

 

Sam snorted and shook his head.  “I don’t know what kind of person your friend Steve Rogers is, but when he does marry my sister, you, Missus Barnes are gonna have your hands full between her and Mister Barnes.”

 

* * *

 

 

“I would say this is one of the proudest moments of my establishment, getting a fine, upstanding man like yourself asking about my ladies upstairs,” Tony nodded as Steve stood in front of him, red faced and his cap in hand.  “But I can also see a new addition to your hand there in that pretty, shiny wedding ring.  And I’m loathe to get on Missus Rogers’ bad side. Darcy don’t fight fair, and I’m not keen on having her destroy me.”

 

“It’s not about that,” Steve shook his head.  He put a coin on the bartop and said, “I just would like to buy a half hour of time, and you don’t need to worry on what I’ll be doing.”

 

“If Darcy finds out---”

 

“She won’t,” Steve promised.  “Half an hour.  Is that enough money for the time?”

 

Tony looked down finally and saw the coinage and blew out a whistle, “For far more than a half an hour.  Which girl do you want?”

 

“All three, please.”

 

* * *

 

 

The three ladies that worked upstairs in Stark’s saloon were a very particular trio of women.  Their regulars had no complaints, and any passerby or random miner who paid for time and walked away with a particularly funny tilt to their steps never said a word about what went on upstairs behind closed doors.  And nine out of ten of those passersby came back for more.

 

Maria Hill had been the first lady to be employed by Stark when he opened the doors to the saloon a few years back.  She’d come recommended by Stark’s own fiancee, and she enjoyed her work immensely, it turned out.  She’d sent a letter back East to a friend, and lo and behold, two years later, Sharon Carter showed up on Stark’s doorstep with a few trunks and an application for employment.

 

The third of the ladies had been something of a surprise.  Sif, a free and prosperous woman that had been a part of Thor’s party of travelling Swedes had paid for the services of Maria and Sharon one night.  And then she had decided she was going to stay.  

 

The three lady package was an expensive one, and one that only one other man had paid for, to be honest.  Nick Fury was a U.S. Marshall and he would often find himself in the little town that Stark had set up shop in, with a bag full of coins and a mind to get a few days pleasant comfort.

 

Steve nervously stepped through the door to the parlor where the ladies met their clientele.  It was a low lit room, and Steve swore he saw something out of the corner of his eye in the corner involving metal shackles and some rope.

 

“What brings you here, Rogers?” Sharon was the first to speak from her place on a beautifully stuffed chaise lounge.  She’d met Steve and Bucky at the general store two weeks after they had claimed their cabin.  The shopkeeper had hilariously tried to make a match between Steve and and the blonde who never seemed to smile, but was still beautiful despite a generally no-nonsense, dour look.  “Thought you took our girl Darcy from us, I would’ve thought a romantic like yourself would have married her by now.”

 

“He has,” Maria shrewdly guessed as she swept into the room, fully dressed in widow’s black, looking tight and severe as her dark hair coiled together at the back of her neck.  She was staring at Steve’s hand and he squared his shoulders in an act of defiance.

 

“You’ve married my friend, Darcy?” Sif questioned from behind Steve.  He jumped and turned to face her, blushing all over at the sight of her in a corset and bloomers and little else.  She was a tall, statuesque kind of beauty, and might have been able to pass for Darcy’s cousin as far as coloring went.  The look on her face was even familiar.  She looked angry.  “And yet you waste your money here with us?  If I didn’t know you might enjoy it, I would give you twenty lashes.”

 

“Uhhhhhhh?,” came Steve’s stunningly intelligent response.

 

“Rogers, do you understand what the three of us do upstairs, here?” Maria demanded, severe blue eyes staring holes through him.

 

“You---you provide comfort to those who can afford it?” Steve asked hopefully.

 

“Indeed we do, but it’s a specific brand of comfort not meant for everyone,” Maria smirked.  “Say---sometime Tony feels the need to have his energetic hands bound---”

 

“We will bind him,” Sharon finished, that serious face showing a little hint of levity as Steve flushed and spluttered.

 

“Oh---”

 

“Are we to assume you need punishment?” Sif wondered.  “I will teach Darcy how to handle your needs---”

 

“No-no, I just, I came because I wanted to talk to you all,” Steve admitted quickly.  He blushed even redder, his face the color of a bright, ripe apple.  “I---I’ve only.  I mean, I’ve not had much experience, it was just the once.  And she didn’t really want to make an, well an event of it. So I don’t know if she took enjoyment from it.”

 

“Did you?” Maria asked shrewdly.

 

“No, not so much aside from the---the ending of it,” Steve admitted.  “I’d have liked to have it be with someone I love more, to hold a woman in my arms in a bed instead of in a dark hallway.  And I love Darcy and I shoulda listened to Bucky when he was talking about pleasing a woman, but I didn’t ‘cause I never thought I’d get the opportunity to.  And now I married the most beautiful lady in the world and I want her to enjoy being my wife, and I don’t know  _ how _ .”

 

The air was silent for a full minute.  The three ladies of Stark’s Saloon stared at him in wonder as Steve took deep, rushed breaths.  

 

“Oh, you darling boy,” Sif cooed at him finally.

 

“Go and get a fresh piece of paper and the ink, we’ll draw him a diagram,” Maria nodded at Sharon.  “First off, Darcy likes to be vocally praised, whether it’s for a good piece of fried chicken or a joke at Stark’s expense.  Call her pretty.”

 

“She’s the most beautiful lady in all the world,” Steve nodded, his eyes full of stars for his new bride.

 

“You’re gonna do just fine,” Maria laughed.  

 

“Do you wish us to show you?” Sif wondered.

 

“What? No, I intend to be faithful to my wife,” Steve shook his head adamantly.  “I just want knowledge.”

 

“And some gain knowledge through visual learning,” Sif smirked.  Her hand went out and pet at Maria Hill’s shoulder with an ease and learnedness of a long-time lover.  “We could show you with each other.”

 

“Ah---uhm---no.  No, thank you,” Steve shook his head again, insistently.  “I, uhm, I’m flattered to be offered a look, but I feel that might be dishonoring my wife.”

 

“You’re sweet,” Maria smiled at him, mildly bemused at his flushed stammering.  “You’ll do just fine.”

 

“But---there are important things you have to do, Darcy’s untouched, and I don’t want you to hurt her,” Sharon said staunchly as she returned with a piece of paper and a quill and ink.  She drew a quick picture.  “Now….after a good bit of kissing and praising and soft touches everywhere but between her legs...here’s what will be good for her.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, if I did an okay job here, we may be getting another mature chapter? Because, you know. wedding night?
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	7. A Quiet Night for Jemmy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beep beep. Wedding night starting in three...two....one...

 

**Chapter Seven: A Quiet Night for Jemmy**

  
  


* * *

 

 

Night had just fallen when Steve finally made it back to the cabin.  His backside was sore and bruised and he had been riding side saddle for the last mile just to ease up on the constant smacking of the saddle against his bruised buttocks.  He was desperate to get back to his wife.

 

_ His wife.   _

 

He was downright giddy as he thought about the fact that he had a wife.  And not just any woman would be calling herself Missus Steven Rogers.  No sir.  He had the finest wife in all of the great, wild, untamed West.  She was smart as anyone he’d ever met.  She was talented in ways that were amazing to Steve, and ways that no one else in his life had ever been before.  He had benefited first hand from her kindness and sweetness when she’d agreed to come with him just a few days ago to make sure Jemmy would be okay without his mother.  

 

And she was so beautiful, that Steve didn’t think he would ever tire from gazing upon her face.  

 

He’d spent a full half hour with the ladies from the upstairs of Stark’s Saloon.  Once they knew why he had paid for their services, they’d quickly tried to jam as much knowledge into him as they could.  Of course he was eager to show his bride what he’d learned.  Overly eager.  He couldn’t wait to lay himself down in bed beside her that night, but he was trying to not get his hopes up.  

 

The ride back to the cabin had given him a new set of worries.  The marriage had been quick and without much forethought.  She’d practically been thrown into it.  Sif had told him as he left that Darcy liked to be in charge, which suited Steve’s particular tastes just fine. But she hadn’t been given much choice in the how and the when of marrying him.  He knew she cared for Jemmy immensely, and Preacher Barton had said that Jemmy was in danger from that Niko person.  

 

By the time Steve put his horse in the shed, he’d managed to trick himself into thinking that Darcy had only married him to save Jemmy.  And he’d convinced himself that he’d be sleeping on the cold, hard floor rather than to impose himself on her.  He’d love her forever, but if she didn’t want to take him into their marriage bed, he would never complain.  He morosely trudged his way back to the big cabin and stood at the door for a full minute before taking a deep breath and walking inside.  

 

He was surprised not to see her in the kitchen, but rather the large bathtub that had been in the shed was sitting near to the stove, filled with steamy, hot water.  On the table was a fresh set of drawers and a pitcher full of cold water.  And on the stove was a metal tin full of warm and appetizing looking food.  If he wasn’t mistaken, it looked like roasted rabbit and some potatoes and that cornbread she made that he loved so much.  

 

“Oh, good, you’re back,” Darcy’s voice echoed from back near the big bedroom.  “I’m just fixing to put Jemmy to sleep.  You take a bath and eat your dinner and---and---I’ll, well, I’ll see you soon.”

 

Steve blinked a few times at the lovely setup and the warmth in Darcy’s tone.  She sounded a fair bit nervous, but still, certainly happy to have him home, that was for certain.  He pounced on the food first, making a moaning noise at the taste of his delicious meal, rejoicing at the water that tasted a little like apples.  He was tempted to lick the plate clean, and actually did a little bit before putting the dish to soak in the tub Darcy had designated as her dish washing tub before looking back at the lovely bath she had set up for him.  

 

She had probably bathed in it first, and he saw there were little flower petals floating around in the hot bath water.  His heart began pounding at the idea of her beautifully soft skin smelling like whatever was in that water and he absentmindedly began tearing his own clothes off in an effort to get into the bath as quick as possible.  He didn’t pay much mind to where he threw his clothing and was jumping feet first into the lovely hot water in no time.  

 

He winced when his injured buttocks hit the hot water, but it was minimal and soon he was sitting in the small tub just barely big enough to hold him, feeling comfortable and warm.  He sighed and allowed himself one moment of calm before quickly reaching for the scrap of soap Darcy had placed on the ground by the tub.  He lathered as quickly and thoroughly as possible, and had a head full of soap when he heard Darcy’s quick footsteps towards the kitchen.

 

“What in the world is burning?” Darcy demanded.

 

Steve dunked himself into the water, sloshing  a lot of it out onto the floor as Darcy ran to the stove, where Steve’s pants had landed and subsequently slowly started afire.  She was smacking them against the floor to get them out when Steve resurfaced and he saw her brandishing pants with a big flame on them and immediately jumped out of the tub and rushed towards her, taking the pants from her hands and throwing them in the tub.

 

“You coulda burned yourself, Darcy!” Steve scolded, reaching out to check her hands for burns.

 

“You could’ve lit us all on fire!” Darcy yelled back.  “You are the most absent minded man I ever did meet when it came to housekeeping and I honestly don’t know how the three of you stayed alive so long without me!”

 

“Well it’s a good thing then that I found you and have you now,” Steve couldn’t be pressed to keep on scolding her, especially when she was looking up at him, mad as anything, dressed only in that short little white chemise that she slept in.  Her hair was wild and curling all around her face, looking soft and newly washed.  He reached out a hand to her face, intent on bringing her in for a kiss when she stepped back from him, cheeks bright red as her eyes darted up and down his frame.   He put his hands over his manhood and grimaced,  “Oh hell, Darcy, I’m sorry.”

 

“No---no, it’s okay,” Darcy said quickly.  “I’ll---I’ll just go back to putting Jemmy to sleep, you---you pour out that water, if you please, and---I’ll, I’ll see you soon.”

 

Steve nodded and watched her go, the linen of her unorthodox chemise billowing as she ran from the room, and his eyes focused on her thighs, lovely and full and soft.  He stood there for longer than he intended, his mind going through all the things he wanted to do if she’d have him.  High up on the list was letting his fingers map out every inch of the skin of those thighs ahead of his lips.  

 

When he finally came to the surface, he was cold and dry and standing naked as a jaybird in the kitchen.  He shook himself out of it, and pulled on the drawers she had set out for him, his best pair, thank the Good Lord above.  The bath water was tossed out on the little patch of wildflowers that Darcy had been picking from every day and then he went about closing up the cabin as quickly as his thorough nature would allow.  He knew that Darcy had nothing to fear from the local Natives, but there was still this Niko character out there.  

 

He’d managed to shut the curtains on the window and blow out the last lamp in the kitchen before he’d realized he should have something to give to his new bride.  He ran back out and plucked a few wildflowers in the darkness before rushing back into the house and locking back up.  Blindly he walked back to the room he had been sharing with Darcy and stood at the doorway with a handful of flowers as he looked in at her.

 

Jemmy’s cradle was strategically placed behind a room divider that she had pulled from Steve’s old room and she was finishing off a soft lullaby in French, as her hand swept brown curls away from the baby’s forehead.  She was more beautiful than anything Steve had ever seen in his entire life.  She looked up at him and her first reaction was to aim a gap-toothed grin at him, bigger than the moon.  She looked down then and blushed a little before adjusting Jemmy’s little blanket and putting out the lamp in Jemmy’s new little ‘room’.  

 

“Hello,” Darcy whispered at a still dumbstruck Steve, standing only in his drawers at the door to the bedroom.  She nodded to the flowers in his hand and wondered,  “Are those for me?”

 

“Yes, yes, they are,” Steve nodded and took a few steps into the bedroom until they were standing right in front of one another.  He held the flowers out to her and smiled,   “Thank you for marrying me?”

 

Darcy giggled.  “You don’t have to thank me for marrying you.  Unless you’d like me to thank you in kind for takin’ me on?”   
  


“It’s my pleasure,” Steve shook his head adamantly.

 

“Are you fixing to lay with me?” Darcy blurted out as she turned and put the flowers on the bedside table in a little cup already full of water.

 

“I--- _ yes _ ,” Steve answered, absolutely dumbfounded and transfixed. “If that's what you want too.”

 

“Well, then,” Darcy nodded.  She gave him a look like she was about to boss him to go and set up a washline for her.  “Go on and get into the bed then.”

 

“Ma’am, yes, ma’am,” Steve grinned and before she could say anything else he reached out his arms and put one at the small of her back and one at her knees and swept her up into his arms handily, delighted with the little whoop of surprise that came from her.  He turned on his heel and walked towards the bed.  His lips landed on her’s, firm and wanting.  “Ssshh, sweet girl, you don’t want to wake up Jemmy.”

 

“He’ll be sleeping sound through  the night,” Darcy promised.  “I fed him some thinned porridge with his milk, so his belly is full, and then I swiped some whiskey on his gums, he’s like a log in the forest right now.”

 

“You brilliant woman, you,” Steve murmured as he placed her down on her back in the bed and stared down at her greedily.  She was a vision in her white chemise, her hair wild and fanned out around her beautiful face.  “Darcy, are you sure you want me this way?”

 

“Oh yes,” Darcy answered easily enough.  She bit her lip and shrugged, “I’ve been thinking about it more than I ought to.”

 

“Me too,” Steve nodded, kneeling down on the bed and reaching out his hand to go to the lace up front of her chemise.  He toyed with the string, wanting very badly to rid her of it so he could look upon his wife completely.  

 

“I think it’s about time for the both of us to stop thinking on it,” Darcy nodded and put her hand on Steve’s, guiding it to the string of her chemise and taking in a stiff breath as he pulled it.  “I’ve seen you in your all together a few times now, it’s only fair that you see me for a change.”

 

“God Almighty,” Steve whispered as her nightie loosened.  His hands went to her shoulders and pushed the fabric apart, and sure enough, it had been the only thing she was wearing.  

 

She was an angel lying in wait for him.  His fingertips grazed her shoulders and he found her skin as soft as the petal of the finest hot house flower he had ever seen.  Her breasts, which he had gotten a hint of in her chemise at bedtime were very full and round and perfect.  He let his fingertips draw down from her shoulders, over her clavicle and his touch was tickling.   Darcy shivered slightly as he mapped a lazy, wandering line over her heaving bosoms.  

 

Darcy let out a gasp and she wondered just how much experience her new husband had.  He seemed to know exactly what to do to get her heart hammering and her lungs short on breath.  When his touch turned from feather light to grasping hands on her breasts, she arched into his touch ever so slightly, a soft mewl coming from her lips.  

 

“Beautiful,” Steve whispered before bringing his lips down to hers, laying out on the bed, half atop her.  Her mouth was open and he wasted no time before letting his tongue delve past her lips, running along hers.  She made a delicious, muffled sound of surprise but kissed him back, her tongue timid at first, but quickly learning how to move against his, even with the distraction of the pleasantness of his thumbs rubbing against her pebbling nipples.  He pulled away with a gasp for breath and stared down at her in wonder before whispering,  “My sweet bride, you are so beautiful.”   
  
“Christ almighty,” Darcy gasped as Steve wasted no time in moving more kisses from her mouth to her jaw and then down to her neck.  She wriggled on the bed when wet, insistent kisses were placed on the space between her breasts.  Her hands reached out and grabbed at the sides of his head and she pressed her thighs together tightly as Steve slowly kissed all over her breasts before letting his tongue languidly lave at her hardened nipple.  “Steve, darlin’,  _ Oh Lord _ , that’s nice.”

 

Steve delighted in getting her to take the Lord’s name in vain.  He was sure the preacher back home would have been appalled, but there was something so honest in how she expressed her pleasure, and he was  _ giving _ her that pleasure, so he took a lot of pride in every time she made a little sound of enjoyment.  

 

He was painfully hard already, and he wanted more than anything to find comfort in the pure bit of heaven he was certain lay between her thighs, but he had a lot of things to do for her before he could think of himself.  He wanted this to be wonderful for her.  It promised to be the best thing to ever happen to him in his entire life so far, aside from her marrying him, so no matter when he finally got to find release, he knew he would be happy.  But if he could make this first time enjoyable for his bride, it would increase his own pleasure tenfold, he was sure of it.

 

And Maria Hill had promised to string him up in the stocks outside of the Sheriff’s office if he didn’t make this good for her.  And she’d promised him she would be able to find out somehow.   But that was only tertiary in his mind.

 

Darcy’s little hand wandered from his face and he sighed against her skin as she stroked down his neck to pass over his shoulders with soft and meandering touches.  He continued to let his mouth work against her bosom, distracted by the delight of her words and her gasps as he touched and kissed and licked to his heart’s content.  He didn’t realize her touch had gotten to the waistband of his drawers until she had snaked a hand under it and brushed her palm against his aching length.

 

“Damn,” Steve hissed at the exquisite feel of it as she rubbed up and down.  “Sweet girl, I’m not going to be able to do what I was fixing to do if you--- _ oh God _ .”

 

She was stroking him curiously and he felt a shiver run through his whole body.  There was a smug little light in her eyes and he knew she probably took as much accomplishment from getting him to take the Lord’s name in vain as he did for her.  With a Herculean effort that he didn’t think himself capable of he pulled away from her, taking her hand out of his drawers and kissing the top of it chastely.

 

“But isn’t the idea to put your----your manhood inside of me?” Darcy asked breathlessly, her face flushed.  Her hair was spread out around her head, and her lips were pink and bruised with kisses.  She looked like an angel and Steve could only stare at her for twenty full seconds.

 

“Just give me a moment to make you feel good,” Steve said earnestly.  “Just---a moment.”

 

“I feel plenty good,” Darcy nodded slightly.

 

“Better,’ Steve promised and shimmied down the bed and put his hands on her thighs, intent on spreading them apart.  

 

“What’re you doing down there?” Darcy demanded in a harsh whisper, holding her thighs clenched shut.

 

“Making you feel good,” Steve promised with an earnest smile.

 

He placed a kiss on her soft belly, then another, then another, letting his tongue dip into her navel for a moment until she quivered and unclenched her thighs slightly.  He looked up at her through his eyelashes and there was heat in his gaze as he caught a scent of her arousal.  It was a good sign, he knew from his very recent studies and chatting gossip he’d caught when working with loose lipped, vulgar men at the docks.  But nothing could have prepared him for the earthy, honeyed scent of her, heavy in the air and surrounding him in a hazy cocoon of want and desire.  

 

Darcy still seemed hesitant about what he was doing, so he let his hands run up and down her calves, lingering and stroking where she seemed to like it best.  The backs of her knees seemed to be  a good spot and he placed heated kisses just above the skin of her knees, working his way up at a glacial pace.  

 

“I want to give you as much pleasure as you’re gonna give me,” Steve whispered against her skin.  “I want to touch you here---”

 

His nose just barely nudged against her curl covered mound as he placed an open mouth kiss against her inner thigh, his tongue swirling against her skin and she shook in anticipation on the bed.  The closer he got to her lovely womanhood, the stronger his desire got for her.  And Darcy herself was becoming more frenzied.  Her legs were now parted, and her back was arched in anticipation.

 

“Can I, please, Darcy?” Steve asked softly and sweetly.

 

“Please, yes,” Darcy nodded fervently.  

 

Steve smiled against her skin and felt something low in his gut turnover pleasantly.  He brought his kisses closer and closer to her beautiful, pink center and he brought one of his hands from the stroking of her legs to her pretty wet lips at the apex of her thighs and let a rough and callused finger gently pet her.  

 

“Oh,” Darcy whispered.  Her words were muffled and Steve looked up at her again, seeing that she had put both of her hands over her red face.  

 

“Beautiful, you’re so beautiful,” Steve promised her, afraid she would be too embarrassed to enjoy herself fully.  He pressed an open mouth kissed against her center and let his tongue take a slow drag up from her entrance to a little hard nub that made her jerk on the bed noticeably.  “Delicious and beautiful and you’re all mine.  My bride, my sweet girl.”

 

“Do that again,” Darcy whispered, not quite sounding like her bossy self, but certainly getting there.

 

“My pleasure, Missus Rogers,” Steve smiled against her skin and did as he was told, happily.  She was delicious, sweet and earthy and  _ plentiful _ as the more he earnestly licked at her flesh, the wetter she became.  Both of his hands went under her legs, drawing a line on her skin until they hit her round and fleshy bottom.  He grasped her cheeks and went back to his pleasured work with enthusiasm that would have made his three private tutors proud.  

 

Darcy was embarrassed at the sounds coming out of her mouth, but she couldn’t very well help it.  The way he was making her feel was unbelievable and so very good from the tips of her toes to the top of her head.  She felt hot all over and every time his tongue rasped against her in a certain way, she felt tingling starting from her nethers and reaching all over her body.  Something was happening to her, with every passing moment, she felt she was getting closer to something.  A fine sweat had broken out on her brow and a pleasurable, thick feeling was radiating from her lower belly.  

 

It felt like he was using his tongue to spell out his name on her flesh, branding her as his for all time, and he might have been on the  _ R  _  at the end of  _ Rogers _ when her whole body seized up and she clapped her hands over her mouth as she let out a loud wail of achievement.  

 

Steve groaned as more of her sweet, creamy wetness ebbed against his lips and he looked up at her in amazement, watching as her eyes tightly shut and her heavy breasts heaved with big, gasping breaths.  He eased his hands from her rear and began stroking them up and down her thighs again, with their path straying closer and closer to her pretty little womanhood.  

 

“Now do we do the---the thing?” Darcy gasped out in a hoarse whisper.

 

“Just one more thing, my sweet little bride,” Steve ground out, even as he twitched in his drawers.  

 

“Oh good God, I can’t take much more,” Darcy swore.  “I think my head came clear off my shoulders, Steve,  _ please _ .”

 

“Did it feel nice though?” Steve wondered, his finger going back to her puffy little lips that framed her womanhood.  He gazed at the beauty of her.  As an amateur artist he knew that it probably deserved to be drawn someday, but that was likely pornography and would get him sent to hell.  Maybe he should take a hint from the sly artists of the past and paint Darcy’s hidden beauty that was only his to look at as a flower.  

 

“Yes,” Darcy gasped as she felt one of his fingers tease around her most private part, easing into her ever so slightly.  “But I want to make you feel nice too…”

 

“I’ll feel plenty nice if you can do that pretty little trick for me again,” Steve promised her, although his words were strained with his want of her.  He managed to get over it though as he slowly slid his index finger into her wet heat.  She was tight and soft and warm and he leaned his head against her thigh, staring up at her in wonder.  “You looked as though you were ready to fly apart at the seams.”  

 

“Felt like it,” Darcy nodded, then let out another little mewling sound.  “Please, Steve, please.”

 

“I have you, sweet girl,” Steve promised, watching in amazement as his finger slowly went inside of her.  He drew it out slowly and licked the taste of her off of his lips before letting his digit slip inside of her again.  She was still tight around his exploring finger and his recent education at the hands of the local women of the night had told him that in order for her to like it, she should be more at ease.  He began panting as he worked her over with one finger, and waited until she was writhing on the bed before adding his middle finger too, amazed at the way her hips moved in order to push into his touch a little bit more.  

 

“Steve,” Darcy whimpered on the bed.  She felt so full and hot and disoriented and she knew she wanted more.  She was wanton and desperate and she felt her cheeks redden as she moved her body to meet more of that pleasant burn of Steve’s fingers.  It was a good thing he had married her already, because if he had seen her behave in such a way as she was, she reckoned  he may not have wanted to.  She looked like a loose woman, pleasuring herself in such a way.

 

“You’re so beautiful,” Steve murmured at her, as if reading her mind.  “I want you so badly, my perfect, sweet bride.  Let go for me one more time, please….”

 

Darcy let out an unintelligible sound and then Steve curved his fingers inside of her, seeking something she didn’t know, but suddenly desperately wanted him to find.  Her head shook back and forth, her hair getting more mussed around her as she felt his fingers alternating between searching and stretching and suddenly it didn’t matter and she couldn’t quite care what he was doing so long as he kept doing it.

 

Steve watched her come apart for a second time and stilled the movement of 

his fingers as she moved her hips as far down as they could go.  He felt his throat go completely dry as she clenched around his intruding digits, and he wondered if he’d get the honor of bringing her that kind of pleasure with his hard length buried deep inside of her.  He felt a fire burning in his belly and swore he’d do his damndest to get the gift of feeling her in such a way.  

 

He talked her through it, whispering her platitudes as she came down from her high before withdrawing his fingers from her, taking them into his mouth and savoring the salty sweet taste of her one more time.

 

“Are you alright?” he asked timidly.

 

“Oh Christ, yes,” she whispered raggedly.  She looked down at him in wonder and held out her hands to him.  “Please, let me make you feel just as good, please?”

 

“Oh my sweet girl,” Steve breathed as he made his way up her body again, finding a natural slot between her parted thighs.  His hands went to her hair, tangling there and he took such a large amount of enjoyment at the soft curls against his fingers.  Her hands went to his drawers and began pushing at them impatiently.  He laughed when she sat up and maneuvered around his body, pushing those drawers down and he managed to kick them off of his feet with a surprising amount of talent and grace.

 

Her soft hand drifted on his previous injury and he smiled down at her.  

 

“I’m alright,” he promised.

 

She grinned at him and her hands drifted to the front of him and he watched her face as she put her hands on his aching manhood.  She was curious and a little bit amused at the look of it, probably.  Deft little hands worked the beads of moisture that had leaked from him up and down his shaft and Steve groaned at the feeling of it.  

 

It felt a fair bit better than his own hands, that was for sure.  And the one woman who’d initiated him into relations back East hadn’t really taken the time to get to know him, so to speak.  Darcy began to avidly stroke him and he had to put his hand on her wrist to stop her.  

 

“You’ll have me finished off before I can start,”  Steve smiled weakly.

 

“Oh, well, you can get all hard and hot and big again, can’t you?” Darcy questioned curiously.  Because he was big.  Bigger than that morning when she’d seen him washing his face.  And bigger than when she’d seen him just a bit ago at the tub.  She had a worry again at how he’d fit, but she felt like he might stand a chance now, after feeling so lovely and full with his fingers.  

 

“Yes, it can happen quite often when I’ve got my mind set on you,” Steve admitted, leaning in for a quick, searching kiss.  “It might take me a little while, though.”

 

“Oh, no, I don’t want to wait,” Darcy shook her head.  “I want to feel you now.”

 

Steve was all too happy to oblige her.  He kissed her again and pressed against her so she lay flat again.  His hands traveled down her body once more, taking an extended moment to take the heavy weight of her breasts into his hands, strumming his thumbs against her nipples.  His fingers tickled at the flesh of her belly and soon enough his hands were on the backs of her thighs, lifting and moving them to properly embrace his hips. 

 

He let out a moan as the tip of his manhood brushed against her wet center.  Darcy made a whimpering sound and then sighed in such a happy, lovely way that Steve honestly didn’t know what he had ever done in his life to deserve someone who was surely just an angel fallen from heaven into his life.

 

“Do you love me?” he whispered against her mouth.

 

“I do,” Darcy nodded.  It was fast to be sure, but she wasn’t lying.  She had the practicality to know that she’d grow to love him more and more with each day, but at that moment, she felt love for him.  New and green and exciting.  Someday, she was sure it would grow up into a great big redwood tree, taller and stronger than anything.

 

“I love you, too, my sweet girl, my lovely little bride,” Steve nodded.  He guided himself against her entrance and pushed in just a small amount.  He struggled with himself not to take her in a hurry, she was surely the greatest thing he had ever felt, but he didn’t want to hurt her.  “Beautiful Darcy. You feel like heaven must feel.”

 

Darcy could only make a soft mewling noise as she got adjusted to the heavy feeling of intrusion.  She took a deep breath before moving her hips down, intent on feeling more of him.  Steve let out a choked moan and put one of his hands in her hair again before kissing her once more, pushing himself inside of her another inch.  He swallowed her little gasp of surprise, and spent what could have been thirty seconds or three minutes of excruciating blissful torture slowly finding himself enveloped by her wet, warm depths inch after torturous inch. 

 

“God, oh God,” Darcy cried out when he was finally fully inside of her.  He was hard and hot and pulsing.  She was thankful he had taken his time with her, had given her such amazing enjoyment before, because the full feeling of him was burning and a little painful if she were being honest.

 

“Are you alright?” Steve whispered, sounding like he’d just run all the way to California and back again.  

 

“Yes, just---yes, it feels  _ full _ ,” Darcy tried explaining.  “Just give me a moment, darlin’, just a moment.”

 

“Alright,” Steve whispered, sweating quite a lot by that time  as he held himself above her on one arm, the other hand preoccupied with gently stroking her beautiful face.  “Thank you.”

 

“For what?” Darcy asked breathlessly.

 

“For all the things you’re making me feel right now,” Steve smiled at her before closing his eyes and reveling in it.  It was astonishing all of the things he was feeling.  Completion and love and so much pleasure he didn’t think it was quite legal.  She reached her head up and kissed at his chin, and jaw and neck.  Her hands were stroking up and down his back with lovely affection and he opened his eyes when she finally moved her hips against him.  

 

“Oh, that’s---that’s good,” Darcy nodded in agreement with herself.  “Can you---can you?”

 

“I can,” Steve promised, kissing her nose once before propping himself up on his elbows on either side of shoulders and pistoning his hips in and out just twice at a painfully slow rate.  “Just tell me when you want more.”

 

“More?” Darcy questioned and let out a little surprised cry as Steve moved his hips a little faster.  “Oh damned hell, oh God.”

 

Steve panted above her.  He wanted to make her feel good one last time, but he didn’t know if it was possible with him sweating on her and suffocating her with his weight.  He managed to support himself on one elbow as his other hand drifted down her body.  Fingers trailed the little curve in her waist and he eventually meandered to where their bodies were joined as one.  

 

“More, more,” Darcy begged at the first clumsy press of his fingers against her wet flesh.  

 

Steve bit his own lip, staving off his gratification, intent on giving her more as she asked.  The only sounds in the room where her shallow little gasps for air and the sound of his body joining with hers.  His mouth was open and his eyes were blinking for extended moments, the vision of her face as she sought her completion once more was burned onto the back of his eyelids and he hoped he would dream about it every night for the rest of his life.  

 

Her hands were everywhere, a soothing touch on his back, fingers digging into his biceps, her thumb running along his jaw.  She wanted to keep a hold on him, making sure he was still there, grounding her somehow so she didn’t float up into the sky.  

 

“Please,” Steve begged.  “Please let go, Darcy, please.”

 

He hitched one of her thighs higher on his hip and found a new angle, one that had Darcy throwing her head back and letting out a mangled little cry that he wanted to make happen again.  HIs hand went back to where they were joined and sought out the spots that had her shivering before.  And he did his best, but he found at the first involuntary clench of her warm walls around his length, his vision went white and he was spilling his seed inside of her in long spurts.

 

“Darcy,” he gasped out, his fingers still rubbing at her hardened nub in his haze.  

 

Darcy shut her eyes tightly again and her hands flew from his back and went over her mouth as her hips began pressing against him insistently, even as he let himself go inside of her with a warmth she could feel.  Her head began shaking back and forth and she squeezed with her inner muscles without knowing what her body was really doing and suddenly that dizzying pleasure came over her in waves as she shuddered with her own happy achievement.

 

Steve collapsed on top of her and she made a little surprised sound,  but felt kind of accomplished at having given her husband so much gratification that he had turned into a nearly drooling mass on top of her.  He was hard inside of her still, but she felt him slowly getting smaller and softer as his breathing evened out.

 

“Steve?” she whispered into the night.

 

“Yes, my sweet girl?” he nodded against her hair.

 

“Will it always be so nice?” she wondered.  

 

“Yes, by God it will, I promise that I’ll always endeavor to have you enjoying our relations.”

 

“Oh...good,” Darcy nodded. “And now what?”

 

“Now,” Steve smiled, pulling out of her carefully and gently, kissing her temple when she winced in discomfort.  He turned and lay on his back, wincing himself when his injured rear hit the not quite forgiving hay mattress.  He put his hands on Darcy’s waist and turned her so that she was halfway laying on top of him. 

 

He reached for the quilt at the foot of the bed and brought it up and over them before his arms banded around her and he hummed as her head found the crook of his shoulder.   He kissed her gently on her forehead and felt a bone rattling thrill go through him as he cuddled his wife close.  

 

“Now we go to sleep,” he said softly.

 

“And tomorrow we might do this again?” Darcy wondered hopefully.  “It was more fun than what some ladies say it’ll be.”

 

“Yes, sweet girl, if you want to, tomorrow we can do it again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please be kind?
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	8. A Busy Day for Jemmy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Boy did I cram a lot into this 6k++ chapter. I should have probably broken it up, but did not want you to have a big, stomach turning cliffhanger.
> 
> Warning: misunderstandings regarding Steve's fidelity to his new bride lay ahead.

 

**Chapter Eight:  A Busy Day for Jemmy**

 

* * *

 

  
  


Married life suited Steven Grant Rogers quite well.  All ten hours of it thus far.

 

He'd woken with the dawn and the crowing of Howard the Rooster, who he'd wished he had left for dead for a split second until he came into his surroundings more fully.  He had an armful of warm, soft woman and that would have been enough to set his heart aflutter, but said woman was very awake and had found something to occupy her time while she waited for him to join the land of the living.  

 

Nimble little fingers were walking up the underside of his stiff manhood, curious and mapping out the terrain.  She was wiggling ever so slightly in his hold, angling her head to get a better look at him under the quilt.  He peeped one eye open only and watched her expression intently.  A little pink tongue was pressed between two plump lips and there was a wicked blush staining the bridge of her nose.  Her eyes were completely focused on the small peek she had under the quilt, a little furrow in her brow as tentative strokes of her finger morphed into her hand attempting to wrap around his hard shaft, moving up and down in mimicry of what they had done the previous night.

 

He hissed out at the dry contact, and she pulled her hand away, rolled to her side away from him and froze completely in place.  She went so far as to feign a snore and Steve couldn't help laughing at her, a low, rumbling, sleepy sound in their marriage bed.

 

"Sweet girl, come back," Steve goaded, turning on his own side and reaching out his right hand to run down the quilt covered curve of her body.  "You just surprised me is all."

 

Darcy snored in response, completely committed to pretending to be asleep.  She hadn't meant to molest her husband in his sleep, and she certainly hadn't meant to hurt him.  She'd just been bored.  She usually woke at least an hour before Steve, her internal alarm set after years and years of waking to stoke cooking fires and prepare meals for men that would wake and get to a full day's work.  

 

But she'd been trapped in Steve's embrace for the better portion of a half hour, and she couldn't get out to add a log to the stove, and she couldn't free herself in order to fix up breakfast or start in on another batch of laundry, or even to begin working on a new covering for the second bed that they would be needing once Bucky and Natalia had returned.  She was trapped under a heavy arm, holding her body tight to his and she'd noticed a tenting on the quilt where Steve's privates lay and he'd made a nice moaning sound in his sleep and something that sounded like her name.

 

So she decided to do a little bit of exploring to pass the time, was all.

 

And he'd responded in kind, growing bigger and harder under her ministrations, so she thought it only right that she do something to help him, as it looked red and painful and wasn't that her job as a wife to take care of his needs now?  But he'd made a sound like a cat who got his paw stepped on and now he was sure to be fixin' to be angry at her, and Darcy was hoping that he'd just think he imagined it all as part of his moan-filled dream now.

 

Her eyes widened when his right hand delved beneath the quilt that she had pulled all the way up to her chin.  She let out another snoring sound to cover any other noises she might have made when his large hand ran over her shoulder, then went to the side of her chest, fingers just barely grazing the side of her bosom.  He rubbed back and forth there for a little while and damn it all to hell, but it really did feel mighty nice.  

 

He crowded into her from behind and his hand was like a brand on her skin, moving to the soft and plush curve of her waist.  Long fingers made swirling patterns on her skin and his touch went all over her little plump belly, moving lower and lower and lower.

 

She snored extra loud when his hand went between her sore thighs, fingers petting at the soft brown curls there, and then very deliberately made a delicate swipe at the lips of her sex.

 

"Shame my beautiful wife is sleeping so soundly," Steve whispered in her ear.  His entire front end was pressed against her back with nothing between them but skin.  She wiggled her bottom a little against him and he groaned at the contact of his hot skin against her rounded and delightful rear end. "I would have liked to show her how happy I am to wake up to her wandering hands and sweet little body."

 

Darcy made an unintelligible noise  when his hand cupped over her sex and she tried to cover it up with a snore.

 

"How are you feeling, my sweet little wife?" Steve whispered in her ear.  "Would you like to take the day off and rest in bed?"

 

Darcy snorted in derision.  She had far too much to do today.  She was hoping the general merchant would be sending her a wagon full of supplies and she absolutely had to get the garden planted if they had any hope of having vegetation to eat during the dead of winter and now there was a chicken coop that needed painting and repairing and setting up for the chickens the Bartons were sending.  Sure she was a little sore around her inner thighs, but that was just on account of her husband's enthusiastic and thorough love making from the night before.  

 

"I'd like nothing more than to linger here with you," Steve sighed before pressing his lips to her neck.  "We could manage it, I think, just keep Jemmy fed and happy and---"

 

"Are you outside of your damned mind?" Darcy huffed out in abject horror.  "If you want to starve the whole of the winter, then fine, let's lay in this bed all day and give each other nice and pleasant touches.  But I'm not fixing to let my household duties waiver just cause I like to be touched by you quite a lot...and---and---"

 

She turned her head to see him grinning like a cat that ate too much cream and she knew he'd teased her on purpose.  

 

"You're an awful husband," Darcy pouted.

 

"Now, now, don't say that," Steve shook his head at her, his fingers still working at her sensitive flesh.

 

"Two can play at this game, Mister Rogers," Darcy threatened and reached behind her, shoving her hand between their bodies and going straight for his manhood in her no nonsense manner.  

 

"It's dry," Steve warned her.  "It don't feel as nice like that."

 

Darcy nodded minutely before bringing her hand back out of the covers and spitting without hesitation into her palm before going back to what she had been set to do while he was still sleeping.  

 

It didn't take very long. 

 

In fact it took an embarrassingly short amount of time before both of them were panting, red in the face and making the most private of noises.  At one point, Darcy felt herself so hot all over that she shoved his hand away, and bent her body in such a way that her heated flesh rubbed against the part of Steve that she had been stroking so avidly.

 

"You sure you feel alright?" Steve whispered.

 

"Please, just, please do what I say," Darcy demanded hotly, despite not having said anything about what she wanted from him at all.

 

Steve smiled and positioned them a little better, lifting her leg so that he could enter her as they lay there spooned on the bed.  

 

"I like doing what you say," he ground out as he worked himself in and out of her exquisite heat.  

 

Darcy nodded.  She was a little sore, to be honest, but it felt like a well-earned sore, like she had been riding all day and had made a good dent in a long trip.  She had to admit that whatever discomfort there might have been, it was far outweighed by the pleasure of it all as Steve languidly moved his hips against hers.  She liked it like this, with the both of them on their side in the bed, because having his bulk at her back was nice, and his hands were doing wonderful things, being as free to do as they pleased at the moment.  One held a heavy breast, gently grasping and petting in a way she certainly appreciated.  His mouth was on her neck, painting kisses up and down it in such an honestly lazy way that it gave Darcy a little thrill.  His other hand was between her thighs again, stroking her in an abstract pattern and very likely trying to rob her of any bit of common sense in her brain.

 

He was making noise too, sounds that were muffled against bitten lips, obviously trying to prolong the act and hold off on becoming a useless pile of man once more until he got her to a place of achievement just as he had the night before.

 

"You're awful good at this," Darcy's words were stuttered with the movements of Steve's hips.  "Had much---ah--there, there, there, please."

 

"Mmmphh," Steve made another of his bitten sounds as he followed her direction as best he could.  

 

"Practice?" she finished her sentence a few extended moments later.

 

"What?" Steve managed to ground out, working himself in faster and shorter strokes inside of that little piece of heaven he'd claimed as his own.  

 

"Been with many---you---seem," Darcy's head began shaking back and forth and Steve couldn't help but smile as she put her hands over her face again, just like the night before as she hit the peak of their union very suddenly and without warning.  He was quick to follow, having held off since he had first slid inside of her.  

 

When she was sure he was spent, Darcy was quick to duck out from under his arm.  He had been asleep like a log for hours after their first union, she wasn't likely to get stuck there once more.  She had far too many things to do.

 

"Come back," Steve sleepily begged.

 

Jemmy, sweet little Jemmy who had slept easily through the night saved her with a sleepy morning cry.  She reached for the chemise that had wound up crumpled at the bottom of the bed and threw it on, blushing wickedly when Steve pouted at the disappearance of skin.  Her eyes widened considerably when she felt the results of their earnest congress slowly leaking out of her and she made a little uncomfortable squeaking sound and ran back behind the divider to Jemmy's portion of the room and grabbed the baby up, rushing from the room as Steve struggled to keep his eyes open.

 

"Come back, my sweet girl," he mumbled, opening his eyes after what he felt was just a moment and was shocked to see that at least an hour must have passed as the sun was much higher in the sky now.  He rolled onto his back, surrounded by the scent of his wife and he smiled.  It was going to be a wonderful day.

 

* * *

 

 

Married life suited Darcy Anne Rogers just fine, all thirteen hours of it thus far.

 

Sure, she was a little suspicious of just how many women her husband had lain with.  

 

And he had been sleeping like a dead log for an hour and a half past sun up when she had been bustling around the cabin and the surrounding area, trying to get things ready.

 

But she was fine, great even.  She liked married relations quite a bit, and was absentmindedly thinking about them again, but was worried that wanting more of it would just have Steve sleeping even longer than he had been.

 

She was mid scrape of the peeled paint on the chicken coop, Jemmy strapped to her back in such a way that he felt like a real little man, facing outwards and waving his fat little arms at far off birds, when the wagon began approaching with her goods and supplies that she had had Steve order.  She squinted in the distance and scowled, because Happy Hogan wasn't alone.  

 

"HIYO!" Tony Stark waved gleefully.  He shouted across the country landscape gleefully, "Lewis, I've missed you so much!  Your absence has been like a hole in this withered old heart.  Say, do you have any of that delicious porridge cooking this fine first morning of married life?"

 

Darcy rolled her eyes at Stark's antics and took a vicious swipe of the last of the peeling paint of the chicken coop.  She stomped away from it, now just needing to sand it down and paint it.  She'd be done before lunch, for certain.  She put her hands on the straps of Jemmy's little sling and rushed into the house, grabbing two bowls and slamming them on the table before filling them with the porridge she had had cooking for her slumbering husband.  She pulled two spoons out before meeting Happy and Tony by the chicken coop, thrusting the bowls into their hands and going straight for their wagon, intent on getting the coarse bristle brush she had asked Steve to order for her.

 

Before the men could get their first spoonful to their mouths, she had started in on the loud and obnoxious sanding, getting half of a wall done before either of the men dared to speak.

 

"Well I'll be damned, my girls usually always come through," Tony huffed out in annoyance.  "It's my claim to fame.  No matter what you come in for, Stark's Fancy Ladies will be able to give you what you deserve and need.  But here you are, looking mad as a hellcat."

 

"What?" Darcy demanded.

 

"Well, your shiny new husband came in last night to the saloon," Tony shrugged.  "Thought he woulda picked up a few tricks, is all."

 

"He WHAT?" Darcy's eyes went wide in shock.  "He went to town to visit the girls?"

 

"Uhhhhh," Happy Hogan looked extremely wary.  Darcy looked madder than anything he'd ever seen, and he'd seen Tony's fiancee after finding Tony face down in a horse's trough, dressed in ladies underthings a few years back.  "Now, Miss Darcy---"

 

"Missus Rogers, now," Tony corrected, completely unable to read how suddenly devastated Darcy was.  

 

She blinked back tears and went back to the chicken coop, sanding as viciously as she could manage.  

 

"Missus Rogers, don't jump to conclusions," Happy urged her.  "He might not have been visiting the ladies for the reasons you're thinking."

 

"What, he paid me a silver just to chat with them, or to draw them?" Tony scoffed.  "Waste of a good silver and my ladies' talents."

 

"I'll just help unload the cart now," Darcy dropped the brush and went stomping towards Happy's cart, completely ignoring any further attempts at conversation.

 

She had thought Steve had been happy to wed her and bed her.  She'd thought for one sparkling, brilliant moment that she had been enough for someone.  And that someone had been a wonderful, honest, loyal person.  But the moment he'd married her, he'd run off to the whore house, intent on getting taken care of by capable and proper women instead of the little housekeeper and cook he'd just married.

 

Happy looked distraught and was trying to communicate with Tony wordlessly, to no avail at all.  Tony was oblivious as per usual.  Darcy had unpacked nearly the whole cart herself, with the gurgling fat baby strapped to her back.  She nodded at Happy and held out her hand for a shake.

 

"Pleasure doing business with you, Mister Hogan," she nodded.  "I won't be needing the two beds after all, just the one."

 

"Missus Rogers," Happy shook his head as she walked away quickly back to the cabin. He smacked Tony upside the head when she was far enough away.  "Now look at what you did.  You ruined that poor girl's honeymoon."

 

"She ought to know what Rogers has been up to," Tony shrugged.  "She's a good one, that Lewis.  And if her husband has tastes that she's unable to keep up with and steps out on her so quick, well, then, she just ought to know."

 

The lady in question was currently standing in the kitchen, confused and troubled.  She pulled Jemmy off of her back and went about fixing him his bottle.  Once he was happy and content and fed, she grabbed a handful of the toys she had made him and tiptoed back to the big bedroom.  She popped him into his cradle and gave him the toys before tiptoeing back out.  She needn't have worried about waking Steve, he seemed to be knocked out completely still, and she wondered if his face didn't look a little paler than usual as he lay there.

 

He'd had a long couple of days, he might have taken a little ill.  The little wounds on his rear end may have gotten infected.  Darcy paused at the doorway and worried herself a little.  She shook her head out of it though and went back to the kitchen, grabbing a piece of paper and looking around for something to write with.  She found a little tin of charcoal pencils and wondered who had used them so well in the past, some of the bits were down to nubs.  

 

She quickly penned a letter before nodding to herself and looking around for anything she might need.  

 

Tears hit her eyes when she realized she wanted to take nothing.  Not her bag of money.  Not any of her clothing.  Not even her goat Mary.  

 

For once in her life, Darcy was not going to be the one left behind by someone who was supposed to love her.  

 

She nodded before wringing her hands once more and turning and marching herself right out of the Rogers-Barnes cabin.  

 

* * *

 

 

Sam was on the road again with his charges.  He could deal with the red headed woman.  She was competent and businesslike and had a way of insulting her husband to his face in such a way that said husband grinned like an idiot and asked for a kiss.  She reminded him of what little he remembered about his own mother.  Strong and in no mood for anyone’s ridiculousness.  

 

Bucky, however, was quite an annoyance.  He was constantly asking for water.  Or asking to be let out of the cart to go relieve himself against a tree.  Or asking his wife for kisses.  Or annoying the living daylights out of Sam.  

 

“So tell me about this Darcy girl,” Bucky asked congenially enough.  “She’s a good sort, is she? How do you know her?  She pretty as a picture?  Does she like to be a little...commanding?”

 

Sam rolled his eyes.  One question he could have dealt with, but Bucky kept on asking questions and it was very, very obnoxious.  

 

“She’s the closest thing I have to a sister.  She’s pretty as any of the prettiest girls in the world, with big blue eyes that are friendly and kind and a mouth that’ll cut you down with some well-placed sass if you need it,” Sam answered.  

 

“Got a figure on her?  Cause not that I was looking too much, but my pal Steve cuts a nice figure for a man,” Bucky nodded in appraisal.  “He used to not be so much, but then all of a sudden he sprouted up like a weed and then put on some manly muscles to boot.  He needs a gal who’s no waif.  He likes ‘em plump, I can tell the way he looks at ladies sometime.  He’s a sucker for a swell bosom.”

 

“I’m not talking about Darcy that way, she’s the nearest thing I have to kin,” Sam grumbled.  Although Bucky had just described Darcy’s figure pretty accurately.  Being taught how to trap and hunt her own food had meant Darcy had never experienced real hunger out in the wild, and her figure benefitted from it.  She was like one of those perfect illustrations of a lady from an advertisement, all curvy and rounded in the right places.  And Sam had seen plenty of trouble over the years defending her honor unbeknownst to her.  

 

He’d especially liked putting that arrow through the cape of that Swede, Fandral.  He’d been stuck to a tree for nearly seven hours after Sam had taken care of him.  

 

“And she’s bossy?  He likes a bossy lady,” Bucky nodded.

 

“Bossy enough,” Sam shrugged.  “Why don’t you go occupy your wife?”

 

“She’s not on the cart, you’re slow on the uptake,” Bucky smirked at Sam.  “She hasn’t been on the cart for an hour.  She went to go scout out up ahead.  She’s got a bad feeling, and if there’s anything I know about my wife is that we always trust her feelings.  She’s got a gift, is what she’s got.”

 

“She’s a terror, is what she is, what’s she thinking she’s doing going around and running about the forest with no guide when there’s someone out there to get her---”

 

“Hello, Red, my lovely.  Sammy here was questioning your superior judgement,” Bucky smiled pleasantly at his wife as she came out of the shadows of the trees to stand in front of the cart.  His face turned serious though when she tossed him a pistol, obviously taken from another man.  “What’s going on?”

 

“They’re in danger.  Niko is not alone,” Natalia nodded.  She surveyed the cart and asked, “How much longer?”

 

“Another hour and a half, maybe,” Sam nodded.  He stepped off of the cart and handed the reigns to Bucky.  “Cart’ll go faster with just you in it.  I’ll go ahead and keep things clear.”

 

“Thanks, Sammy,” Bucky said earnestly, which was another thing about him that annoyed Sam.  Normally he was playful and teasing, but there was always an honest sort of earnestness that annoyed Sam even more.  

 

“This isn’t just for your second wife, Steve and your son.  My sister is in danger too,” Sam reminded him.

 

Bucky smiled and had the mule pull the cart faster.  

 

“She’ll probably be my sister in no time as well.”

 

* * *

 

 

Steve finally woke up feeling well rested for the first time in a very long time.  His eyes had just opened to the light filled room when he was doused with a bucket of ice cold water from the nearby river and he jumped up to sitting with a loud howl of pain.

 

He was instantly shivering and wiped water from his eyes to get a look at who had give him such a rude awakening.  He swallowed to see his sweet wife standing over him next to the bed, an empty water pail in her hand and an angry look on her face.

 

“I was going to leave you!” she hissed at him.  “I was a mile away already and was gonna leave you forever you awful, horrible man!”

 

“Please don’t,” Steve said automatically and with some worried desperation around his shivering as he squirmed out of the bed.  He looked down at his lap and grimaced at the fat little fish that must have hitched a ride in the bucket.  He managed to pick it up and put it back in Darcy’s bucket before rising from the bed and standing next to her, nude, wet and shivering.  “What’d I do, sweet girl?”

 

“Oh don’t you sweet girl me, you louse!” Darcy slammed the bucket into his chest.  It had been another hour of sleep for Mister Rogers, but it had been an hour of angry tears and confused, muddled thoughts for Darcy.  She had been fixing to leave, she didn't want a part of this heartbreak.  But then she kept thinking about poor Jemmy.  And thinking of how Steve might have been sick and she'd just abandoned him and the duties she'd sworn to just the day before.  She had decided she was just always going to be weak, and finally turned around to go home to her new life as a wife to a man who already had three mistresses.  “I should STILL leave you, but then I thought of poor Jemmy starving to death while you slept off your tiredness from the VERY busy day you had yesterday!”

 

She glared at him and stomped from the room, going to the kitchen and immediately slamming things around.  Steve felt his teeth chattering and Jemmy cooing in his cradle.  He took one second to try to gather his thoughts before he began panicking.  

 

She’d been fixing to leave him already.  He ran to the kitchen, putting the bucket down on the table and watching in concern as she began putting her supplies away.  Flour was dumped into a container, then hastily tied and dropped to the ground.  Sugar was next.  Then salt.  She just kept on filling containers as loudly as she could, slamming things around as loud as she pleased.

 

“Please tell me what I did, so I can fix it,” Steve whispered earnestly.

 

“Nothing that shouldn’t be expected,” Darcy huffed, before she stopped in her supply storage and went to the dish basin instead and began noisily cleaning dishes.  “Just know, Mr. Rogers, that if I’d a known what you had wanted before we was married, I might have been less inclined to say yes.”

 

“What did I want?” Steve asked, dumbfounded.

 

“Stop playing the innocent lamb act!” Darcy stamped her feet, not bothering to finish the dishes as she turned on her heel and headed for the door once again.

 

“No, no, please, don’t go,” Steve begged, reaching out for her arm to stop her.  She evaded him and he gave chase.  “Please tell me what I did? Is it cause I missed the morning chores? I’m sorry, I was just so tired and I felt so peaceful.”

 

“Yeah, you had plenty to be tired of!” Darcy huffed out, trying to rush around him and finding that he matched her for every step.  They looked ridiculous.  Darcy in her britches and workshirt and Steve completely naked from head to toe.  They looked as if they were doing a complicated and not at all graceful dance, Steve reaching out for her with outstretched arms and Darcy just barely evading capture.  

 

“What do you mean by that?” Steve demanded.  He thought hard and realized that she had been putting away new supplies.  Delivered by the general merchant.  Who was good friends with Tony Stark.  Who was not apt to keeping his mouth shut about matters of a delicate nature, whether the man owned a whorehouse or not.  “Darcy, my sweet girl, please listen to me, it wasn’t a visit like that.”

 

Darcy reached for the poker of the stove fire and held it up high enough to poke Steve’s eye out if she so chose.  He stepped forward anyway, like a reckless idiot, and held up his hands in a gesture of innocence.

 

“You can go and ask the girls, I didn’t touch any of them,” Steve promised.

 

“Why’d you need to visit a bunch of working ladies like that on our wedding day?” Darcy demanded.

 

“I needed advice!” Steve admitted guiltily.  He turned bright red all over his face and shrugged, “I wasn’t a man of much experience, and I wanted it to be good for you, cause I love you and want to make you happy.”

 

“I----I---well,” Darcy huffed out, feeling like the wind had been kicked out of her.  She had been so angry with him for the last few hours.  

 

“You can’t leave me,” Steve pleaded.  “I love you, and you’re my wife now.”

 

“You shoulda told me,” Darcy whispered.

 

“I’ll tell you everything from now on, I promise,” Steve nodded at her eagerly.  “I paid a silver and spent a half hour in their parlor upstairs that Miss Hill said you had a personal hand in decorating so nicely, and they drew me pictures of the lay of the land...well, in regards to female parts.  And told me what might feel nice for you.”

 

“I thought you didn’t want me,” Darcy admitted guiltily, dropping the fire poker and letting her shoulders drop, all the fight being drawn completely out of her.  “Thought you married me on account of it was convenient for Jemmy.”

 

“It is highly convenient for Jemmy, but I married you cause I’m hoping to love you the rest of my life and beyond that if you’ll let me,” Steve said honestly.  He took a timid step towards her, testing the waters in case she try to run or grab another weapon to brandish at him.  He paused when he saw her chest heave upwards very quickly and almost violently.  But then she expelled the breath and with it came a tortured little sob.  “Oh my sweet girl.”

 

Darcy tried to resist, but she was exhausted and Steve easily managed to pull her up into a strong embrace, lifting her ten inches clear up off the floor so that her feet dangled in the air.  He hugged her with all of his strength and if Darcy hadn’t found comfort in it she might have complained about the lack of air in her lungs.  But it was comforting, and his hands encompassed her back and his mouth was pressed against her temple and it felt so nice to have him holding her tight and not willing to let go.

 

“I’ll never leave you, and I’ll try to do the right thing by you always,” Steve promised.  “Your place is here with me now, we’re going to be a family of our own, you understand?”

 

Darcy made no answer, she simply took a deep shuddering breath.

 

“Darcy, sweet girl, I asked if you understood,” Steve prodded her.  

 

“I understand,” she whispered.

 

“Promise me the next time you think I did something to hurt you, you’ll dump another bucket of water on me and then tell me,” Steve demanded gently.

 

“I’ll do that,” Darcy nodded.  

 

“Without the fish though,” Steve smiled against her skin.

 

“With  _ two _ fish,” Darcy mumbled.

 

“Do you love me?” Steve whispered.

 

“More than I ought to already,” Darcy answered back truthfully.  “I was mighty hurt to think you went to those girls for physical comfort, Steve.”

 

“But I didn’t, because the only lady I ever want to touch like that is my beautiful wife,” Steve promised.  “But that can wait for nightfall.  Right now, I’ve got nearly half a day’s worth of work to catch up on.  That chicken coop isn’t going to make itself presentable.”

 

“Just needs a fresh coat of paint now,” Darcy shrugged.  “When I get angry, my hands are better occupied.”

 

“Alright then, why don’t you put me to work?” Steve questioned.  “Tell me what to do and I’ll do it.”

 

“You can go and get dressed.  I swear you walk around without a stitch of clothing on more than any one person I ever met, and I used to work for Tony Stark,” Darcy managed a big smile and a grin at him when he pulled away to look her in the eye.  She hummed when he kissed her on the lips, gentle and easy.  “Pants, Steve.”

 

“Oh alright,” Steve sighed, turning around with her still in his arms and marching them back to the bedroom.  “Help me sort them out though, cause you cut through the rear of my second best pair of pants and I lit my best pair of pants on fire last night---”

 

The sound of a gunshot went off in the distance and Steve tightened his grip on Darcy as he rushed back to the bedroom.  He placed Darcy next to the cradle and immediately went to the bed and grabbed his drawers, pulling them on.  

 

“Any pants at all?” Steve wondered.  He knew Darcy had been working through the laundry and the mending, but she’d been doing an awful lot of other work too and may not have gotten to it.  He watched as she ran across the hall, intent on staying to guard Jemmy, but wanting to keep an eye on her safety as well.  She came back with a pair of black pants---her own.

 

“Sorry,” Darcy shrugged as he pulled them on regardless.  He looked ridiculous.  As plump and curvy as Darcy was, Steve was still a little bigger and much, much taller than her, by nearly a foot.  The pants ended mid-calf and the waist closed easily, to which Darcy couldn’t help but be annoyed with, but they strained over his thighs and buttocks, as if he’d bust out of them if he tried hard enough.  

 

“It’ll be fine, sweet girl,” Steve nodded.  He reached out for her and kissed her before going and looking for a shirt, throwing one on quickly.  “Stay here, please?”

 

“Yeah, but---I’m a fair good shot,” Darcy offered.  “I’m handy with weapons, you know, if you have a spare pistol?”

 

“I haven’t even got a pistol, Darcy,” Steve admitted.

 

“Then what the devil are you going to run out there for?” Darcy demanded in astonished annoyance.  

 

“I’m fixing to protect my wife and my nephew,” Steve nodded, in agreement with himself at least.  “By any means necessary.”

 

“You fool, Rogers, you can’t protect yourself against bullets, you ain’t got any damned armor or a shield to stop those things!” Darcy stamped her feet.

 

“I’ll be fine,” Steve shook his head, taking a step away from her, turning slightly.

 

“To hell you will!” Darcy hollered, all heat and fury again, but this time it was not borne out of anger towards her husband, but out of a fierce desire to protect him.  She took him turning his back to her as an invitation and threw herself on his back.

 

“Darcy!  Darcy!” Steve almost laughed as she clamored onto his back like an exotic little monkey.  She managed to get her right arm around his neck and wrapped her legs around his waist.  There was another gunshot from outside, this one closer.  “Darcy Anne Rogers, you let go of me this instant so I can go out and see what’s happening!”

 

“If you’re fixing to go out there and get yourself shot, you’ll take me with you!”  Darcy insisted.  “You promised not to leave me, Mister Rogers, and that includes leaving me for the great beyond, so you’d do well to just listen to me like a good husband and keep your stubborn ass here!”

 

Steve tried to dislodge her, but then her brilliance stuck on the word  _ ass _ and it was as if a divine light beamed down on her from above and she reached her left hand down around herself and gripped Steve’s rear end, right over where the splinters had been almost twenty-four hours earlier.  Steve howled in pain and staggered in the room, heading towards the wet bed and falling sideways on it with Darcy still attached to him like a barnacle on the bottom of a boat.  

 

“God Dammit, Darcy!” Steve called out as she pinched at his injury again.  He managed to roll them and somehow he wound up on top with her pinned beneath him.  “Now you stay right here and keep quiet while I----ahhh hell and tarnation!”

 

Darcy let up on her grip on his rear end and managed to twist them in the bed so that he was beneath her as she straddled him, holding her hands on his chest.  She was red-faced and her hair was a mess and she was panting with sudden exertion.  

 

“Do you yield?” she demanded.

 

“To hell if I will!” Steve laughed at her and easily put his hands on her waist and lifted, pulling her off of him.  She didn’t wait long to tackle him again, this time having him on his belly and her sitting at the small of his back.  He winced as she slapped his buttocks none too gently, her fingertips hitting the little spot where most the splinters had been removed from.  “Missus Rogers get the hell off of me!”

 

“NO!  Not until you can talk some sense to me instead of hurling horse shit my way!” Darcy insisted with as much sweetness as she pleased.  She slapped his rear again for good measure, grinning like a smug little kitten.

 

“Damned fool of a woman,” Steve muttered before taking a deep breath and pushing his body up on his fists, launching Darcy off of his back and sending her tumbling to the side on the bed.  

 

She was quick to recover though and Steve had to quickly scramble to his knees, hearing the abused pants he had borrowed from her splitting right up the back seam, exposing his drawers yet again.  He had no time to mourn the third pair of pants he’d managed to destroy in less than twenty-four hours as he went for her arms, pinning them above her head and clasping them in one strong hand.  His other arm went low across her abdomen in an effort to keep her from bucking up against him.

 

Her legs lashed out at him and he had to entangle his longer, stronger legs with hers in order to get her under some semblance of control.

 

“Sweet girl, calm down, now,” Steve demanded.

 

“You’re gonna get your damned fool self killed is what you’ll do!” Darcy craned her neck and attempted to  _ bite _ him on his chin.  

 

Steve groaned and shifted on top of her, and really, was not endeared to his body’s predictable response at that point.  His hardness pressed against her hip and if she’d just exploit  _ that _ , she would probably have little to no trouble keeping him in one place.

 

He heard a gunshot, and it sounded as if it were just outside their front door.  He looked down at her pleadingly.  

 

“I just want you and Jemmy safe.”   
  


“I can’t lose you, Steven,” Darcy whispered back.  

 

“Never’ll happen,” Steve promised, leaning down and kissing her squarely on the mouth.  

 

Inspiration struck Darcy again and she managed to arch her back so that her breasts rubbed up against him and her legs stopped trying to wrestle with him to break free, and instead tried to wrestle with him so that she might wrap her legs around his middle and move her hip in a way that might entice him to stay right put.

 

“Well, well, well, don’t mind me,” a new voice said from the doorway.  

 

Darcy and Steve turned in concert to see Bucky Barnes standing there.  He looked road weary and put a smoking pistol down on Natalia’s simple vanity in the corner. 

 

“Bucky?” Steve blinked.  “You’re---you’re home…”

 

“The threat was bigger and closer than originally thought,” Bucky shrugged.  He smiled and winked at Darcy, who was still trapped beneath Steve.  “You must be Missus Darcy Rogers.”

 

He paused and moved his head here and there to get a better look at Darcy’s hands, still trapped in Steve’s grip.  He nodded at the sight of a ring and smiled bigger.

 

“Good, glad to know you won’t be facing a scalping from a war bride, Stevie.  And Missus Rogers, it’s a damned pleasure to meet you.  Don’t let me stop you from doing what you’re doing here, I’m just here to collect my boy and bring him to his mama, who could use a little relief with the nursing of him,” Bucky grinned down at his cooing baby boy and picked him up, absolutely delighted with Jemmy’s excited reaction at seeing him for the first time in over four days.  Bucky was limping, but it seemed almost manageable and he had no problem heading back towards the bedroom door.

 

“Buck, what happened, is everything alright?” Steve asked, yelping when Darcy managed to get one of her hands free and quickly brought it down on his rear end in a slap.

 

“Well now, that’s a discussion for when you’re through here,” Bucky nodded respectfully at Darcy before giving her another playful wink.  “If you get it with the palm of your hand and not the tips of your fingers, little lady, it’ll smart more.”

 

“Thank you, Brother Bucky,” Darcy grinned at him and followed his advice, making Steve yelp again and go flat out against her in a sprawl.

 

“Enjoy, Sister Darcy.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really excited that I might be finishing a multi-chapter story soon. MY FIRST!
> 
> (For those of you wondering about Heroes Get Remembered, Legends Never Die, I have lost my muse on that one temporarily. I'm sure it'll be back eventually, but I've written the next chapter four times over now and I'm not confident in it yet, so please be patient.. Thanks!)
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	9. A Family Reunion for Jemmy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! We're almost done! It's dark and cold and rainy where I am and I'm thinking of making a huge, huge pot of homemade soup. 
> 
> Chicken corn chowder or Chicken Tortilla Soup? 
> 
> Decisions, decisions.

**Chapter Nine:  A Family Reunion for Jemmy**

 

* * *

 

 

When all was said and done, Natalia had been trained extremely well.

 

Natalia had been trained so extremely well, that the people who trained her had no hopes of ever bringing her back in again.  Sam had been disappointed that he had only gotten one shot in on their sneak attack on the men who had tried to attack the cabin.  Bucky had also shot one man, a hired miner named Rumlow who had gotten close to the cabin in order to steal baby Jemmy away.  

 

And the rest of the ten men, including Niko himself had been handled readily by Natalia.  She’d only used eight bullets, too, laying out Niko and another man with fisticuffs alone.

 

“Hell of a woman you got there,” Sam said begrudgingly to Bucky as he finished tying up the wounded.  They’d be put in the Sheriff’s jail until the US Marshal could come and pick them up.  

 

“She’s the one that got me, actually,” Bucky grinned as he kissed his baby boy’s temple before handing him over to Natalia, who wasted no time in whipping a breast out and pushing it at Jemmy’s little mouth, that latched on immediately.  Bucky watched fondly as his wife peppered Jemmy’s little hands with kisses as she whispered Russian words to him.

 

“Card game,” Sam sighed.  “Where is Darcy?  Is she alright?”   
  


“She’ll be fine. She’s just a little occupied rolling around in bed with Steve at the moment,” Bucky shrugged, a mischievous light in his eyes.

 

“It’s not even high noon, yet!” Sam huffed out.  He went for the weapons strapped to his hips and took a step towards the house.  “If he’s disrespectin’ that girl, there is gonna be all kinds of hell to pay.”

 

“Sammy, calm the hell down!” Darcy called out, running out of the cabin and holding up her left hand, the ring glittering off in the sunlight.  “We was married proper yesterday by the Preacher and with witnesses and everything, so you can just stop the over protective brotherly act…”

 

Steve carefully stepped down the little front steps of the cabin to the ground, his hands going to the tear in the fabric on the back of his ill-fitting pants.  He looked absolutely ridiculous with pants that cut off a little below his knee, and looking like he’d seen the wrong end of a rain storm with wet hair and a tousled shirt.  Sam burst out in laughter at him and Natalia smiled.  

 

“Pal, what happened to your pants?” Bucky wondered, he hadn’t noticed the state of them in the bedroom.  

 

“They’re my pants, and he split them open in the tussle we just had,” Darcy nodded, stating the facts plainly and without any embarrassment.  She clapped her hands together and asked, “So, who is hungry?  I caught a fish about an hour ago, and it should taste mighty fine roasted and with some fresh corn cakes.”

 

* * *

 

 

In the rush to get things properly settled, Darcy was here, there and everywhere.  She'd fed and watered and taken care of the new arrivals handily, even going so far as making sure the awful men, who'd have likely killed her easily had they found her walking through the woods alone earlier that morning, had  a drink of water to keep from dying before the law could handle them.

 

Then Preacher Barton came with his wagon, along with a box full of chicks and a few hens.  Steve was not surprised that she had handed a bucket of paint to Bucky and himself, along with two paint brushes and ordered them to paint the chicken coop up right quick.  

 

"Why's Sammy not have to paint?" Bucky grumbled as he leaned on the crutch that Steve had fixed him up quickly.  He didn't think he'd need it much for more than a day or two, but it helped him to stand upright easily and made him feel like less of a lady with the vapors.  

 

"Sammy's helping me churn up the Earth proper for me to plant vegetables," Darcy explained patiently.  "Unless you're fixin' to starve through the winter."

 

"I don't like vegetables," Bucky pouted.

 

"You'll eat what I put on the table or you'll starve," Darcy gave him a smile that Steve already knew meant business.

 

"Alright, but no carrots," Bucky looked at her shrewdly.  He could already tell that he was going to get along just fine with his new sister Darcy, they were more alike in temperament than anyone could have guessed.  But he was going to have to dig in his heels about the vegetable thing.  He quite liked their diet of just meat before, although the corn cakes Darcy had magicked together  were mighty tasty.

 

"We'll see," Darcy sing songed as she walked away.

 

"Best to do what she says," Preacher Barton offered to Bucky as he supervised their painting of the chicken coop.  He nodded and jerked a finger back to the clump of ne'er do wells that had tried to take Bucky's infant son away.  "I'm gonna borrow your missus, if that's alright with you, get these fellas set up in the Sheriff's cells."

 

"Natalia does as she pleases," Bucky winked at his wife as she taught the Barton children how to properly manhandle the tied up men.  

 

"Sounds about right, and while we're at it, we might make her Sheriff, seeing's as the post is vacant and she seems to be right good at it," Barton added.  "You can be her deputy if'n you want."

 

"That's a mighty fine idea, actually," Bucky shrugged, slapping another coat of paint on the chicken coop cheerfully.  “Just so long as she gives me a shiny badge, I’ll be happy.”

 

"You're a nicely trained husband, get to work on this one for me, will you?" Barton gestured to Steve.  "Nice pants, Rogers."

 

"Thanks," Steve rolled his eyes.  He gave a tentative nod to Sam as he came barreling out of the house all of a sudden, a piece of paper in his hands.

 

"Give us a kiss before you go, Red!" Bucky called out and put his paintbrush in Sam's hand before hobbling off to his working wife.

 

"Sam," Steve nodded at the fuming man warily.  "Thought you were fixing up Darcy's garden for her."

 

"Digging holes is apparently easier than painting a couple a wooden boards," Sam glared at him. He shoved the piece of paper into Steve's chest and said, "If I find out she's unhappy with you, or you're disrespecting her in anyway, there'll be hell to pay.  I told her Pappy I'd take care of her, and that means her happiness too."

 

"I---I fixed it," Steve shook his head.  "I wasn't going to the ladies upstairs of the saloon for physical comfort, just....just knowledge."

 

"That's not all it's about, you just read that and fix it to keep her happy," Sam warned.  "And hurry up with this paintin', Darcy wants us to build up a bed frame for you, and I'm not fixin' to try her patience."

 

Steve nodded and held the letter up to read as he absent mindedly painted again.  Bucky rejoined him quick enough and was quiet while Steve read the letter Darcy had left him when she had tried to leave him earlier that day.

 

_ Dearest Steven, _

 

_ I'm set to leave you, seein' as I'm not enough for your appetites, regarding relations betwixt a man and a woman.   _

 

_ I shoulda known that I wasn't enough.  And that your pretty words were just that.  Words.  No one has ever set themselves to love me the way you said you wanted to, so I shoulda figured it was a lie from the start.   _

 

_ There's enough food for you to get through with all the supplies in front of the cabin.  You can keep Mary and use her to feed Jemmy till his momma gets back. _

 

_ Sorry I wasn't enough for you, and sorry I couldn't bring myself to stay.  It woulda been too hard seeing how much I wanted to really love you. _

 

_ Darcy _

  
  


"You're a romantic, Stevie," Bucky said softly as Steve was painting the same spot for the last five minutes.  Bucky had nearly finished the whole coop at this point, and he was barely more than a one-armed invalid with the crutch he was forced to use.  

 

"What?" Steve blinked up at him.

 

"You're a romantic, you probably are already halfway in love with her," Bucky guessed.

 

"I am," Steve nodded.  "I love her very much, she's my wife."

 

"But you just met her a few days ago," Bucky reminded him.  "And she seems more practical than romantical."

 

"Yeah, that's true," Steve nodded.  Darcy was very practical, but that didn’t mean she didn’t have room in her for a little romantic notion or two.  

 

"So, speaking from experience of getting a bride very quick and very hastily marrying her and getting to know her after the nuptials..."

 

"You said you loved her quick enough," Steve reminded him.  “‘Bout the same timing as me, if I’m remembering things right.”

 

"And I did, but Natalia is a glorious exception to every rule," Bucky shrugged.  "The point is, just cause you married her, and lay with her and loved every minute of it, and you do love her as much as you can right now, doesn't mean that you don't have a lot of work to do to keep that love growing and strengthening and whatnot.  I’ll tell you true, Stevie, I love Natalia more now than I did four hours after I met her, and I know it’s just going to keep getting bigger and stronger with every passin’ minute."

 

"I want to do that," Steve nodded.  "How do I do that?" 

 

"Well, we go and build you your own bed in your room," Bucky nodded.  "Then you just keep going one day at a time.  You listen to her, cause you like listening and following her orders, I bet."

 

"She's perfect, she really is," Steve nodded, a dreamy look swimming in his eyes as he repainted the same spot he had been painting for the last ten minutes.

 

"Yeah, I'll just bet," Bucky rolled his eyes fondly.  "And just pay attention.  And let her know she matters to you in all the small and big ways.  Some people in the world need to hear it more often, and I'd reckon she ain't heard how much she matters much at all in her life."

 

"No, she hasn't," Steve admitted.  "Thanks, Bucky.  I missed you something fearsome."

 

"You're talking weird," Bucky narrowed his eyes.  "Like Sammy and your bride.  Let's hope your weird southern drawls haven't affected my perfect baby boy yet."

 

* * *

 

 

Married life suited Steven Grant Rogers just fine, even after two whole weeks of wedded bliss.  Their bed frame had been put together quickly that first day of Natalia and Bucky’s return, but their mattress had been much slower to come together, and they’d been sleeping on a heap of blankets on the floor in the smaller bedroom of the cabin.  

 

One of the new mattresses were delivered just that morning, and Darcy had graciously given it to brother Bucky due to his ailing leg (his leg was healed up fine, but he did put on a limp to look extra pitiable to his sister Darcy), and Bucky had popped Natalia over his shoulder right after dinner and took her to the bedroom, leaving Darcy and Steve in charge of Jemmy’s night time rituals.  

 

While the most recent newlywed couple had no problem with making their marital relations work out on the floor of the cabin.  Or the wall of the cabin.  Or a private enough field down by the river.  And just once or twice in the kitchen when Bucky and Natalia had taken Jemmy out for a stroll.  Steve supposed they had no real problem with relations at all, really, but it would be nice to hold his wife in a warm bed again.

 

Natalia had had a nice talk with Darcy a few days after her return.  Both ladies had come back from their trap clearing excursion a little teary-eyed, but they’d been holding hands and seemed to have forged a bond since then.  Lost souls stuck together pretty well, apparently.

 

Ever since that talk, Natalia had been helpfully nudging Steve along whenever it seemed like Darcy was even the slightest bit blue.  It wasn’t easy being dropped into a household of Bucky, Natalia and Steve.  The trio had bonded together pretty well on their trip West, and there were times when secret jokes were laughed at, and Darcy would turn a little red and wander into the kitchen, tending to something that didn’t really need tending to.  Natalia would nudge, and Steve would jump to his wife, dragging her back into the conversation and bringing her into the joke.

 

Steve had learned quickly that a marriage and vows didn’t automatically make things perfect.  He was certainly glad he married Darcy, that was for sure.  But they had their arguments, just like any other husband and wife.  Usually his complaints were that his wife tended to trick herself into thinking things that weren’t true, especially where his own feelings lay.  She’d had two spells in the last two weeks where she’d convinced herself he thought he’d made a mistake in marrying her so hastily.  The first time he’d tried for patience and kindness to convince her otherwise and it’d taken all day and Bucky interceding on his behalf telling her that  _ Damned fool is over the moon for you girlie, any blind man could see it _ .  

 

The second time, Steve didn’t want to waste a whole day watching Darcy be sad and withdrawn, so he’d picked her up, thrown her over his shoulder and took her to their favorite private spot down by the river.  And then he’d kissed her senseless and let her have her way with him.  And just because he knew Natalia would have known and scolded him, he made sure to talk softly to her afterward about how happy he was.  

 

Natalia said something about how it wasn’t Darcy’s fault she got like that.  Some people just had something in their mind telling them every once in awhile to be anxious and fretful.  And Steve was at least thankful she was getting anxious and fretful about him, because at least with those concerns, he could repeatedly put her mind to rest.  And she wasn’t the type of woman to have a nervous complaint that had her taking the vapors, so that was good too.

 

Most days though, it wasn’t Darcy frustrating Steve.  It was actually quite the opposite way around.  Steve still didn’t completely take to the domesticized lifestyle that Darcy brought to their lives.  Natalia and Bucky had taken quite well to it, doing their assigned chores efficiently and without complaint.  Bucky still complained about eating vegetables, but Natalia usually managed to get him to do it with minimal whining.  

 

Steve had forgotten to clean out the chicken coop most days as he lay in a field, sketching in a little book, page after page of sketchings of his wife along with a drawing or two of Jemmy.  And he was still downright messy and careless when it came to his clothing.  

 

But it worked pretty well most days anyway.  The cabin didn’t seem quite so big any longer with both couples and a rapidly growing Jemmy in it, and Bucky began drawing up plans for the addition to the cabin that would give Darcy and Steve a bigger space...for when they would inevitably need it with how much time they spent on their marital relations.

 

“STEVEN GRANT ROGERS!” Darcy bellowed from inside the cabin. 

 

“Uhoh,” Bucky whispered as he and Steve notched logs for the addition to the cabin.  “What’d you do?”

 

“Nothin’---at least I don’t think I did---” Steve furrowed his brow in thought, then his eyes went wide.  “The chickens!”

 

He ran to the front of the house to the coop and Natalia was standing there, tending to the lively little flock of birds.  She liked to feed them with Jemmy strapped to her back, picking out particular chickens to feed a little extra in order to fatten them up for an eventual Sunday dinner.  

 

“Guess again,” Natalia said cheerfully and Jemmy babbled excitedly in agreement.

 

“Uh----the firewood was stocked,” Steve bit at his bottom lip in thought.  “I didn’t leave my lunch dish out---”

 

“You’re hopeless, Steve,” Natalia laughed, a sound Jemmy echoed happily.  

 

Steve was racking his brain trying to come up with a reason why his wife sounded like she was incredibly angry with him as she slammed a door within the cabin.  He’d not eaten the pie filling she had put together that morning with some harvested apples they had gotten from a tree at the edge of their property line.  Even though he’d been sorely tempted to.  His wife made really amazing pie filling.  

 

The chickens were tended to.  Mary had been milked by Bucky (who was a fair hand at dealing with Mary no matter what, the ornery goat really adored him).  Steve and Bucky had done two hours of haying that morning, getting more than enough to feed Mary and the horse for the winter, and possibly enough for the little calf that the Barton’s were willing to sell him.   

 

Steve had even left Darcy a little love note on her pillow on the bed that he was hoping she would find when she got around to putting on the blankets and quilts she had freshly laundered the previous morning.

 

_ The bed _ .

 

The brand new bed that had been delivered at sunup, it was a finely crafted mattress, no hay to be found, only stuffed full of cotton and some springs, it promised to be heaven on Earth with his wife in his arms.  Bucky and Natalia’s had been already made up the day before when it had been delivered first,  but Darcy was working on stitching up the last few squares of a new quilt for their own bed.  The bed that Steve had thrown his wet clothes on about two hours ago after jumping into the cold river after harvesting hay with Bucky.

 

Steve ran for the house and made it to the tiny hallway leading back to the bedrooms when a pair of wet pants were flung at his head.  Darcy was standing in front of their room, hands on her hips and looking madder than anything.  Steve smiled.  He couldn’t help it.  It was his natural reaction to seeing her like that.  He loved when she was full of fiery, beautiful anger, though usually he liked when it was directed elsewhere.  

 

“Sweet girl, don’t be angry at me,” Steve kept smiling, which only seemed to make her a little bit angrier.

 

“The new bed, Steven!” she whispered, as she did when she got really worked up.  “It’s brand new and leaving stinking river water pants on it will get it molded over and stinking with the damned river water!”

 

“I forgot we got the mattress this morning,” Steve explained.  “I was used to using the frame as a clothing hanger.”

 

“You’re very lucky that I’m head over heels in love with you Mister Rogers, cause if I wasn’t so fixed on you, I might be inclined to strangle you,” Darcy wrinkled up her nose adorably as Steve approached her with his hands up, like she was some kind of angry, little bear..  “Is there  _ anything  _ you aren’t liable to forget most days?”

 

Steve grinned wider and shrugged, “I’m not liable to forget that I love you very much, Missus Rogers.”

 

“Oh you,” Darcy huffed and pulled the wet pants from Steve’s shoulders and went to go and put them out on the line to dry the rest of the way.  She squeaked out in surprise when Steve picked her up by the waist and carried her back towards their room.  “What do you think you’re doing?”

 

“Gonna go and apologize to the bed proper for leaving my pants so carelessly,” Steve smirked, opening the door and then patting Darcy’s bottom fondly as he crossed the threshold to their room, then kicked the door closed.  “Then I’m fixin’ to apologize to my wife and break in that there new mattress by showing her how much I love her and how beautiful I find her when she’s as angry as a wet cat.”

 

“I swear, if I find out you’re doing these forgetful household things on purpose just to get me angry, you and I will---we’ll---,” Darcy faltered and let out a whoop of delight when Steve fairly threw her on the new, springy and comfortable bed.  

 

“You’ll what?” Steve wondered, whipping off his shirt then going for his newly mended, formerly best pair of pants.  

 

“I’ll be plenty mad at you is all,” Darcy looked up at him with a silly little grin on her face.

  
“Well---that sounds pretty good to me, now, let me pull that apron off of you sweet girl, it’s getting in the way of my plans for you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading! The last chapter should be up tomorrow!


	10. A Bride for Jemmy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay! I finished my first multi-chapter story!
> 
> I'm super duper excited.

 

**Chapter Ten:  A Bride for Jemmy**

 

* * *

 

Married life suited Steven Grant and Darcy Anne Rogers just fine.  Even eight months and twenty-seven days after they said their vows.  

 

Natalia said it was the wet pants on the bed that probably did the trick, but whichever of the numerous times Steve and Darcy had enthusiastically celebrated their marriage with biblical relations could have technically been when Darcy had found herself with child.  

 

Natalia had given a fairly clueless Darcy a look two months after coming home from she and Bucky’s time in a cave, then immediately pulled her down from the logs she had been helping Steve and Bucky to pull up to make a new wall on the cabin.  For all of Darcy’s fancy books on housekeeping, there hadn’t been anything about missed monthlies or feeling queasy at odd times throughout the day.  

 

When Darcy had told Steve that night when he lay in bed with his arms around her, sweaty and pleasantly exhausted, he had made a huge whooping sound of delight that had Bucky stumbling into the room with a shotgun.  Steve had declared that he couldn’t possibly be happier, and immediately declared that he was through with being forgetful and careless around the house and that his expecting wife shouldn’t have to lift a finger any longer because he would do all the work.

 

He tried, he really did, but he burned through another pair of his pants in an attempt to do the laundry, and then nearly broke the stove when mixing up porridge the very next day.  

 

Darcy gave him different tasks to complete before the start of winter, and he and Bucky spent many hours of daylight working in the big field next to the cabin, breaking up sod with a borrowed plow and Barton’s team of horses, in hopes of making spring farming a little easier.  And when they weren’t planting a modest farm just big enough to support them, they were building the addition to the cabin as quick as they could.  The aim was to make the small bedroom a nursery for Jemmy and the new baby when they were older, and the addition to be a bedroom for Darcy and Steve.  

 

Natalia was fitting into her role as sheriff just fine.  Any miner who had something to say about a lady sheriff was quickly silenced by a rough glare from said Sheriff and then the preacher, who had rapidly become Natalia’s partner in crime.  Even Tony thought it was an inspired idea to have a lady sheriff and Bucky had had to punch him straight in the face for asking his wife to join the other ladies upstairs at the saloon to dispense out justice to paying customers.

 

The new lady Sheriff had plenty of spare time to run the traps for the family, using her own skills and secrets from Darcy’s Pappy to ensure that they’d always have enough meat and the ability to trade furs on the open market.  

 

Darcy had tired herself out many a night in the kitchen, having to have Steve bodily pick her up and drag her off as she tried to prepare for winter just as her housekeeping books told her to.  She salted fish and meat, she stocked the root cellar from floor to ceiling with as many root vegetables that she could lay hands on.  She had enough firewood to last seven winters thanks to Bucky and Steve's  prodigious skills with an axe.  And she had been canning fruits and vegetables as soon as they were conceivably ripe enough to do so.  She even put aside a container of squash and vinegar for Preacher Barton, never knowing when she’d need a bribe to get him to do something she wanted.

 

By the time the first snow fell, even Natalia had to repeatedly reassure Darcy that the winter would pass by just fine with what they had.  And Natalia was not used to repeating herself, ever.  

 

Christmas had been a lovely affair.  Darcy had been about five months along by then, and Steve had spent most of his time close by her side, and getting in the way of her preparing a feast in the kitchen, her first Christmas feast in a real home.  She’d been midway into trussing up a duck that Natalia had shot from the sky the day prior when Steve’s gigantic foot had stepped into her dish basin, upending it and sending soapy water every where.

 

She’d frog marched him back to their new bedroom, slammed him on his back on the bed, then proceeded to get him so exhausted that he slept like a log and let her finish preparing her damned meal.  

 

Bucky had tried to convince Steve around February that it probably wasn’t the best idea to have marital relations with Darcy any longer, as the baby was probably big enough to feel what was going on at that point.  Natalia had scoffed at the idea and smacked her husband upside his head, she had let him believe it when she was heavily pregnant with Jemmy, but that was mainly because she hadn’t wanted to be touched by then.  Darcy seemed just fine with it and Natalia felt it prudent to keep the woman who cooked their meals as happy as could be.  Steve had looked dismayed and a little bit terrified at Bucky’s warning.

 

Steve would never be able to not touch his wife in that way, especially if she was asking him to, which she was with urgent frequency the bigger and more swollen her belly got.    It was Sam Wilson that had told him it was fine, when he had caught Steve morosely walking up and down the riverbank with a line of fish.  

 

“You can do whatever you want so long as she’s asking for it. If you don’t make my sister as happy as she can be during this time, I’ll put you in this river with stones strung up around your ankles.”

 

So Steve did what made him happiest, which was whatever Darcy wanted, whenever she wanted it.  And Bucky never needled about it either, because he was pretty much the same with Natalia.  

 

So eight months and twenty-seven days into their marriage, Darcy had woken up to make the porridge, despite the insistent low back pain that refused to go away.  She opened the nursery door for Jemmy, who had climbed out of his cradle and waited patiently to be released.  He toddled after Darcy into the kitchen and waited patiently to be put in his specially built high chair for his own porridge.

 

“Hungee Dacy Hungee!”

 

“I know you are little man, just give us a minute,” Darcy promised, grabbing a little jar that she kept the candied bits of dried fruit.  She pulled out a few pieces and put them in front of a delighted little man who tried to shove a whole piece in his mouth at once.  The porridge making was taking a little bit longer because Darcy had to keep pausing to put her hand to her lower back and hiss out in annoyance at the dull, throbbing pain that would come and go every once in awhile.  

 

But she managed to get the porridge done, and Jemmy fed and even the coffee done before anyone else woke up.  She was midway through the dishes she soaked overnight when a particularly hard pain worked through her and suddenly she was all wet  and dripping down onto the floor.  

 

“Oh no!” she cried out.

 

“No, no no no no!!!!!!!!!!” Jemmy repeated loudly.

 

Bucky was out of his bedroom in a heartbeat, shotgun in hand but thankfully wearing a pair of drawers.  He looked around wildly before his eyes settled on Darcy and he looked relieved.  Then saw the puddle at her feet.

 

“Did you have an accident with your dishes, Sister Darcy?” he asked calmly enough.

 

“No, it just came all outta me like a spicket!” Darcy whispered in a panic.  

 

“Oh hell,” Bucky blinked rapidly.  “Stevie!  Stevie!  Your wife is havin’ a baby!  Wake the hell up you big log!”

 

There was a crash from way back in the hallway from Darcy and Steve’s room, then a whispered curse, and then Steve was barrelling through the door, naked as the day he was born, looking around wildly.

 

“For Christ’s sake, Stevie,  _ pants _ !” Bucky shouted.

 

“Sweet girl, are you alright?” Steve wondered.

 

“James, go and fetch Missus Barton,” Natalia ordered, walking out of their bedroom fully dressed already.  She pushed Steve to the side gently and said, “Steven, go and get dressed.  Jemmy, my baby, eat your porridge.”

 

“Yes mama,” Jemmy grinned at her before taking a handful of the thick porridge and popping it into his mouth messily.  

 

“How long have you been hurting?” Natalia wondered, taking rags away from Darcy that the girl had been trying to use to wipe up her mess with.

 

“Since last night after Steve and I were done...you know,” Darcy shrugged.

 

“I told you not to do that so late, Stevie!” Bucky called from his bedroom.  

 

“I---she started it and she said it was okay!” Steve lamented from his own room.  The sound of fabric could be heard ripping and Steve cursed under his breath as another pair of pants fell to their doom in his hands.  

 

“It’s fine,” Natalia insisted.  “She’s right on schedule, give or take a week or so.  Steven, come in here and clean this up and mind Jemmy while I go and get your wife comfortable.”

 

Steve appeared instantly, ripped pants (he’d managed to put his foot through a weak point in the right knee, essentially making himself half a pair of short pants) and all.  He reached for Darcy’s face and gave her a sweet and chaste kiss on her forehead before grabbing the rags and making sure he cleaned it up.

 

“Put those rags in boilin’ water and some----ohhhh, ow, ow, damn it all to hell that hurts!” Darcy cried out.

 

“Put more water to boil,” Natalia advised.  “We’ll need a lot of it and all the clean rags Darcy had stored away in the nursery closet.”

 

Steve did as he was told, with as much focus as he could muster when his wife was yelling out with pain every few minutes.  At first it had been about five minutes between each yell.  Soon it was less than two minutes.  And by the time Missus Barton came in alongside Bucky, the pained noises seemed pretty much constant and even Jemmy was fretting, sitting on his little mat with his toys and staring down the hallway with tears in his big blue eyes.

 

“Good, good, that’s all good,” Missus Barton saw how Steve had every pot Darcy had on the stove top, the fire was roaring and the water was boiling.  Darcy screamed out a particularly nasty curse and the preacher’s wife nodded and said, “Looks like I’m needed back there.”

 

Steve wanted to be back there with her more than anything.  But it wasn’t quite proper, he knew.  When Natalia had had Jemmy, she had knocked Bucky out beforehand with her clear liquor, disappeared for eight hours, then come back with a new baby.  He was lucky he was allowed to be in the same house.  Bucky did his best to try to calm him, but Steve was pacing the floor, all his muscles going tense anytime Darcy’s voice rose above a whisper.

 

His own mother had helped bring many babies into the world, and Steve knew that a lot of the time things went badly.  He had been praying for hours now, hoping that the Lord wouldn’t be so cruel to take away his beloved wife as she worked so hard at getting their child born into the world.  Bucky watched him carefully and couldn’t help but be thankful to his own wife, who had spared him the torment of waiting and worrying.  He said nothing when Steve would wipe tears from his face or continually run his hands through his hair as Darcy whimpered back in the bedroom.

 

“Steve, oh God in heaven, Steve, please  _ help _ !” Darcy cried out and though Bucky did his best to hold Steve back, his friend broke the hold and ran for the bedroom, bursting into the door just as Darcy wailed her loudest.  

 

Missus Barton was holding a slippery, red, squirming thing as carefully as she could and gave it a whack on it’s bottom so it would let out a cry.  And then it let out a loud wail, beautiful and healthy and strong.

 

“It’s a girl!” Natalia announced to Darcy as she pushed sweaty brown locks away from Darcy’s face.   Natalia smiled at Steve and moved away, allowing Darcy’s husband to trip over his feet and head towards the bed, sitting down next to Darcy.

 

He was awash with silent amazement, his hand going to Darcy’s and squeezing as Missus Barton cut the cord that tied the baby to its mother, then handed the little thing with nary a hair on its head to Natalia for cleaning and bundling.  

 

“I love you,” Steve whispered, looking down at his wife, who was making a grimaced face as Missus Barton helped her with the afterbirth.  “Never thought I could love you more, but I do.  I love you, Darcy.  My sweet girl.”

 

“Now you have two sweet girls,” Natalia smiled, bringing the bundled baby back to Darcy and placing the little one against Darcy’s bosom.  She smiled when Steve carefully drew back Darcy’s chemise and guided the baby to her bosom to nurse.  

 

“I do,” Steve nodded, still in some sort of dreamy haze.  He smiled down at Darcy, who was inspecting her little lady carefully.  “Did you pick from your names?”

 

Natalia made a humming noise in an effort to hold her tongue.  She and Bucky and Sam and the Bartons all had ideas about names.  But she wasn’t to influence Darcy, as that would be seen as cheating.

 

“I like Clara,” Darcy murmured as the girl in question latched onto her breast and looked up at her with very light blue eyes that promised to darken a little with time, and would probably end up being Darcy’s eye color exactly.  Her little head, which was only a little misshapen thanks to the tight road to birth didn’t have much hair, but what was there was a fine, golden blonde.  The little nose was thankfully Darcy’s, as Steve’s nose was lovely for his face, but maybe not for a little baby.  But the chin was Steve’s for certain, and all in all she was a pretty little thing, tiny and small and delicate and hungry as the dickens.  

 

“Clara Rose?” Steve wondered.

 

“Clara Rose Rogers,” Darcy nodded.  She grinned up at Steve, big and bright as the moon.  “I love you, Steve.”

 

“I love you too, my sweet girl,” Steve grinned back.  He leaned in and kissed his new daughter’s forehead.  “Both of my sweet girls.”

 

Natalia grinned as she helped Laura clean up.  She’d been right, because of course, Natalia was never wrong.

 

She’d met Darcy not more than a month before she’d had the girl properly married to her brother-in-law Steven.  She’d known they’d be a great match, and little Clara Rose Rogers was certainly proof of that.  

  
Now, she just had to wait quite a little bit more, and she’d have to make sure Jemmy and Clara made them all a family by blood.  It was never too early to start planning, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading this! I hope that you had fun here!


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